I clarified my point above: forking MySQL will not solve the "GPL-in-the-hands-of-Oracle-salesmen" problem. Any forks will still be bound by MySQL's original terms, which in practice amounted to "You need to pay us if you ever ask us about the license, particularly if you are a rich company, unless you bring a lawyer to argue with us." Keep in mind that Oracle salesmen are 100 times better at it than MySQL salesmen.
My broader point is really about the problems of GPL in the real world, not open source in general. I am a huge fan of BSD/MIT/Apache, and thankfully a lot of contributors these days seem to like those licenses.
I have always viewed open source contributions as a form of charity. GPL is a highly encumbered form of charity (it is still charity, but think of charities tied closely to particular religious points of view). BSD/MIT/Apache is much more freely and liberally given and embody a generosity of spirit ("My charity recipients do not need to follow my religion"). My philosophical preference is the latter.
>BSD/MIT/Apache is much more freely and liberally given and embody a generosity of spirit ("My charity recipients do not need to follow my religion"). My philosophical preference is the latter.
Said in much more succinct terms than I could have mustered.
My broader point is really about the problems of GPL in the real world, not open source in general. I am a huge fan of BSD/MIT/Apache, and thankfully a lot of contributors these days seem to like those licenses.
I have always viewed open source contributions as a form of charity. GPL is a highly encumbered form of charity (it is still charity, but think of charities tied closely to particular religious points of view). BSD/MIT/Apache is much more freely and liberally given and embody a generosity of spirit ("My charity recipients do not need to follow my religion"). My philosophical preference is the latter.