It's not good that articles about GPL still can't get the terms right. It's important to understand your position as a developer.
Users of your code are only obliged to "Release all modifications" to you if they're distributing the code or binary with you.
This might seem like seem like nit-picking, but I can take your GPL project, work on it and sell it to a dozen companies, and you have no right to my modifications. The companies I've sold to could give you a copy if they wanted. But your rights aren't omnipresent.
They also don't stop me using your code in otherwise proprietary SaaS, again contributing nothing back upstream. AGPL targets this.
GPL is good. It's good for users in a way that few appreciate. More software should be GPL... But there are complexities, far more than I've covered above, that many releasing developers struggle to anticipate.
>> This might seem like seem like nit-picking, but I can take your GPL project, work on it and sell it to a dozen companies, and you have no right to my modifications. The companies I've sold to could give you a copy if they wanted. But your rights aren't omnipresent.
It's even worse than that. You can sell the software without distribution modifications to the client. You only need to give modifications if the client ask for them.
There is no interest for the client to request unless they want to break off from the software contract. If you're found to violate the GPL, the client will be unable to use the software, they have more to loose than you.
Users of your code are only obliged to "Release all modifications" to you if they're distributing the code or binary with you.
This might seem like seem like nit-picking, but I can take your GPL project, work on it and sell it to a dozen companies, and you have no right to my modifications. The companies I've sold to could give you a copy if they wanted. But your rights aren't omnipresent.
They also don't stop me using your code in otherwise proprietary SaaS, again contributing nothing back upstream. AGPL targets this.
GPL is good. It's good for users in a way that few appreciate. More software should be GPL... But there are complexities, far more than I've covered above, that many releasing developers struggle to anticipate.