> Hi, people have made money using my code and I also don’t care

looks like everyone's missing the point.

> I understand this is upsetting to you

Again, maybe I am on another level of comprehension, so I don't understanda why it is so hard for someone to get it, but I am not upset by that, at all.

I simply know that those who think "it will be fine" are delusional and don't know what they are talking about!

So I just will paste some link to relevant news here, maybe it will make things clearer.

It includes the opinion of Antirez, father of one of the most successful OSS ever: Redis. Maybe his words will open your eyes and tear the veil of Maya.

(spoiler ahead alert!)

Basically you work for free and people don't even thank you and the maintainer ends up being doxed or blamed or pushed aside and in the long term the only solution to keep sanity is to resign

https://www.jeffgeerling.com/blog/2022/burden-open-source-ma...

https://www.theregister.com/2022/01/13/opensource_apacheplc4...

https://nolanlawson.com/2017/03/05/what-it-feels-like-to-be-...

https://old.reddit.com/r/linux/comments/z14tt2/reason_why_op...

https://github.com/isaacs/github/issues/167

http://web.archive.org/web/20221217180915/http://antirez.com...

> But I don’t see how the GPL is a viable solution to that problem. Not at all

GPL doesn't permit freeloading, that's how

Do you wanna know who the freeloaders are?

Just make a list of companies that do not accept GPL code.

Those are the free loaders.

For people it's even simpler: you don't want to contribute to the project because it's GPL? then you are a freeloader.

Which is not the same of saying that if someone creates a project under Apache license he's a freeloader. There are many reasons to start a project under more permissive licenses, but if you plan to write something that has chances of being successful, think about what you're doing and who got your back.

It's one thing to create Go and make it opensource with Google backing you, another entirely to maintain log4j or GPG or OpenSSH on your free time for years or decades, without even a thank you and people constantly opening issue like "this thing is shit it should be rewritten in Rust" or "this project doesn't have a COC/ the COC is not inclusive enough I will blame you all over the internet" etc. etc.

My Apache/BSD projects are under that license because I know it's code that will be used in a context where GPL would not be accepted, but I also refuse to offer any kind of support whatsoever, basically once you get it, it's yours, I won't even close your issues, I will simply ignore them, that's how much I care about it.

Because I don't care to work on stuff that people are not forced to contribute back to, unless it's for myself.

Need a feature? Show me the money and I will think about implementing it.

> . Not at all. More likely, if I release my code under the GPL not only won’t I get paid, but also nobody will use my software

textbook straw man

you will get paid in code.

Linux is GPL, Vim is GPL, Emacs is GPL, GCC is GPL, Gnome is GPL, KDE is GPL, OpenJDK is GPL, Telegram is GPL, VLC is GPL, Blender is GPL, uBlock Origin is GPL, etc. etc. it's notorious that nobody uses them...