Comment by ekidd
> Big companies can't use strong copyleft libraries in proprietary software, so that would be a no-go.
Just to clarify: I have actually been involved in open source license enforcement efforts, because big companies do violate strong copyleft licenses regularly. Or their subcontractors do.
Usually, if you're willing to pay a good lawyer to yell at them, you can get the domestic ones to stop. And I know of some enforcement organizations that manage to get voluntary settlements on the order US$15,000, or who get the violators to appoint a "compliance officer."
For a big, commercially important project? This is often worth it. For a modest CLI tool, or something which I put a few weeks of full-time effort into? It is not remotely worth my time to enforce a strict license. This is a purely personal tradeoff. But if it's not worth $400 to me to have a lawyer write a letter, then I'm going to use a permissive license.
> But if it's not worth $400 to me to have a lawyer write a letter, then I'm going to use a permissive license.
Again: if it's not worth $400 to have a lawyer write a letter, just don't have a lawyer write the letter! But you can still have the copyleft license... for the situation where it may be worth a lot more in the future. Or just to give leverage to fellow developers: if I use a copyleft library at work, then I can tell my managers that I must contribute my changes upstream, during my working hours.