"I mean, what prevents people from actually going forward and using Zed Shaw's GPL code in a startup?" Decency. It turns out that quite a lot of people have some of that.
Sure. I just don't think it would have been all that much different if Zed had licensed Mongrel with the GPL to start with. It would still have been a mostly unmentioned piece of software atop many other unmentioned GPL-licensed software startups still use. My point is that if you're looking for proper recognition of your work, licensing it the GPL is not a totally effective path to take, in all practicality. Or rather, it's not the /only/ thing you need to do. Actually, it's surprising how many business-y people I know have no idea about what the GPL really is and how BSD/MIT etc differ from it.
If the goal is to be properly /financially/ recognized, i.e., make money from it, have a restrictive commercial license, like it's been done on all kinds of other software for the past 20 years or so, 'open source' or not.
I understand Zed's motivation, I just think having it GPL is a futile effort to prevent other people from abusing his work, coz even tho there's "quite a lot" of decent people out there, there are also "quite a lot" of people who simply. don't. give. a. shit.
fwiw, all the code I write is either BSD-licensed or Python-licensed. Let's just be real.
For individuals maybe it is a matter of decency, for companies on the other hand it's all about liability and it's not as academic an issue as you are purporting.
To put it simply, licensing matters for the same fundamental reason any other legal contract matters and if you care about your company you'd be wise to pay attention.
