1. I know people are not companies. Companies are comprised of people working
for them and supply paychecks for the majority of people who live in a
society. They build a product that is unique and therefore people buy it from
them because their product is better or one they cannot get from the
competition due to having the "secret recipe."
2. You use the comparison about contributing work and one person or entity
taking credit for it. When you work for a company, the output is the property
of that company and when that product is out in the open, the product is
something like "Megacode by Microsoft" instead of "Megacode by John Smith,
coder at Microsoft". I know this kinda of mentality irks the worker with his
boss and his parent company taking credit for it, but that is the reality.
Have a problem with it? Start your own company or be a part of an open source
community asking for donations.
3. I've never read or listened to any of Steve Ballmer's speeches or
interviews, so I have no clue what you are referencing. The "viral" aspect of
the GPL is well documented on how code linking to it must be GPL or how a
permissive license like MIT is ok because they are essentially converting the
code to GPL. Much like how Apache 2.0 code can be in GPLv3 but not the other
way around due to the forced license change.
Don't get me wrong... GPL is great for the guy that wants to create community
software that is non commercial and is just fine with that. Or you may be the
person who wants to create a software library under the LGPL or BSD and get
the greatest reach possible.
