> I dislike the GPL, and the stigmatization of proprietary software for any reason, and the notion that it's inherently evil and unethical.

A flaw in OP's assertion is that I feel that most of what we have today wouldn't exist if it weren't for the GPL licensing.

Edit: Despite RMS's unique bent on things, he hasn't been wholly wrong about the nature of free/nonfree software. If the Linux kernel, or the GNU software suite hadn't been GPL'd in the first place - we wouldn't be using it today. Instead, it would have died out or we'd be using some proprietary fork. I think, in the long term, GPL software benefits everyone because we can fork and share modifications. It fosters a mindset and community that's beneficial to a hacker culture (as in tinkerer, not as in black).

> A flaw in OP's assertion is that I feel that most of what we have today wouldn't exist if it weren't for the GPL licensing.

That is pure RMS rethoric. The narrative that free software exists because of GPL is a compelling one (and sounds plausible), but its not based on reality. It was quite common in the end of the 70's and beginning of the 80's (specially after the creation of the C language) to distribute software in source form, instead of binary packages. Some early examples of this that still exists today are the BSD utilities (granted, now without the Berkeley clause), laying in the ground the notion that GPL is determinant in preserving OSS as an ecosystem.

The "trigger story" about not having access to a printer driver source code is also often simplified. The printer was a prototype of a commercial product, and he was offered the source under an NDA. More details on this in https://www.oreilly.com/openbook/freedom/ch01.html

> If the Linux kernel, or the GNU software suite hadn't been GPL'd in the first place

While there is no arguing that GPL is at least in part responsible for the success of Linux, it wasn't GPL until version 0.99. The major reason why you use Linux today is because of the "unix wars" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unix_wars) - the lack of a free i386 unix system is what drove Linus to write one in the first place. If AT&T was less beligerant at the time, you'd probably be running some form of BSD :)

> you'd probably be running some form of BSD :)

You mean macOS? Or Playstation 3/4? Proprietary, non-free form of BSD, yes.

And that's why google forbids the use of AGPL internally.

>You mean macOS?

https://github.com/apple/darwin-xnu

Why dont you know that? If your a apple user and so interested in opensource?