It’s 11:43pm on a Monday night. My 6-week-old son is asleep in my office so my wife can get some uninterrupted rest for the first half of the night. He’s finally asleep now, and I probably should be also after a full day of work. But I’m not done for the day. Even though I’m a software engineer by trade, I’m also a computer programmer by hobby and passion. So I do what I’ve been doing for well over a decade now: I boot up my computer to write some code.
GPL code can be used in proprietary products as long as it is not distributed outside. There are a lot of such use cases.
At this point i think everybody should just use the AGPL instead of the GPL.
There was an instance where Google used a GPL software (GNU units?) in their backend and didn’t release the modifications because they were technically not distributing it. So yes. It supports your suggestion of using AGPL where its purpose is not immediately apparent. It’s a good thing that people are starting to accept copyleft licenses after the anti-copyleft tirade promoted by the industry.
Seconded, AGPL may be better especially in cases where software is network related.