[libreplanet-discuss] Dealing with blind hatred for the GPL

[Fabio Pesari]

Many people (especially in the open source community) hate the GPL more
than they hate proprietary software, especially the GPLv3. I never found
an approach that works with those people.

Mention "freedom" and they'll say the GPL is "restrictive" and "viral".

Mention practical advantages and they'll say "corporations don't touch
anything GPL".

Mention the dangers of proprietary software and they'll say it doesn't
matter if the program in question is practically better.

Mention existing famous GPL projects and they'll argue that some of them
didn't switch to GPLv3 (like Linux and Blender).

Actually, mentioning the GPL at all will get you covered with insults
and accusations of zealotry.

Showing them articles from GNU.org doesn't work, and will only result in
ad hominem attacks against their author, Richard Stallman.

This reminds me of Two Minutes Hate from 1984.

How to reason with those people? They tend to gang up and it's very hard
to get your point across when everybody is agreeing with one another on
how stupid and brainwashed you are!