&gt; GPL works well to protect the freedom of its users.<p>As do the BSD and especially(?) the Apache Software License.<p>What possibly can be said in favour of GPL is that it:<p>* make the code more resistant to forks, esp. less free<p>* opens an option for the original author of code to do dual-licensing<p>* provides an opportunity for the authors to prevent certain uses of the code<p>Case in point : there is nothing in either the ASL, BSD or MIT that allows you to go back and make already licensed code less free. The original authors can choose to license their new or existing code under another license as well, as can coders using GPL.<p>Personally I would be happy if everyone could stop pretending that GPL is more free or respects users more, - as I have tried to show above it does not.<p>There might still be ideological and even practical reasons to use GPL, but it is NOT more free,  possibly less.