That never happened. On the other hand, LLVM has lead to a tool renaissance.
> The goal of copyleft is freedom for the users, not "pushing the state of the art forward."
Users already have that freedom. They can simply refuse to use proprietary software. They don't require a paternalistic GPL license to 'enforce' a freedom they already had.
The simple act of refusing to use proprietary software does not give users freedom in software, it just prevents them from being subjugated by that one particular piece of proprietary software. Copyleft is also not necessary to have freedom, but it is pragmatic in that it leverages copyright in an attempt to further the political goal of freedom. It would be nice if this didn't have to be done, but we cannot ignore the issue of copyright, it will not go away quietly.
Hardly. Companies have complained plenty, but escaping the network effects of the GPL was expensive enough that they couldn't do much about it.
> The simple act of refusing to use proprietary software does not give users freedom in software, it just prevents them from being subjugated by that one particular piece of proprietary software.
Why not? If they want open-source software, they can use it. There, they're free.
> Copyleft is not necessary to have freedom, but it is pragmatic in that it leverages copyright in an attempt to further the pro-freedom political agenda.
By attempting to enforce a communist ideal of shared ownership of the means of production. Most reasonable people don't consider that to be 'freedom'.
>shared ownership of the means of production
I mentioned this in a different thread but this has no context in the current discussion, the "means of production" are a complete non-sequitur in relation to software. Free software isn't "communist," it simply rejects authoritarianism.
That means I have to escape the GPL despite your wanting to force me to participate. You can keep claiming this isn't communism, except that it exactly parallels the Marxist notions of shared ownership.