PhilipTheBucket

More like, neighbour invites everybody to their pool, but if you go, you have to sign a legal agreement that you invite everybody to your whole house.

Incorrect. No one gets access to the rest of your company’s source code. It’s just that, since they gave you a ton of wonderful stuff for free, you have to do likewise if you’re going to build on their stuff. If you don’t want that, then go find some other swimming pool so to speak (which it sounds like you’ve done).

It boggles my mind how people think this is unintended. “My company tried to build on GPL3 software, but IDK if the authors realized this, but we’re not allowed to do that unless we share our contributions back in turn! What an error! As soon as they find out, they’ll surely change the licensing to one that is more amenable to what we want to do in terms of reselling their source code to people without complying on our end with the GPL!”

I can pretty much guarantee you, this will not be a surprise to the people who licensed their code GPL. We have been having this conversation for decades. Your input as to whether it’s “beneficial” to them to restrict you from doing what they don’t want you to do is noted.

“How dare my neighbor put a fence around his pool! I tell you, ever since he did that, my kids can’t swim there and we’ve had to figure out something else to do.”