Google's disappearing Android GPL compliance opportunity

rejected by non-technical people who hear the scare stories about the "GPL will cause you to have to give away all your code" nonsense who aren't sure which version of the GPL will cause the problem, they just know that there are problems with using "GPL code" and so don't go any further.

yes, it's silly, and mostly it's a case of management being lazy and not knowing what's going on, but at the same time it's a very real effect.

how much of this is the fault of the FSF? that's harder to say.

the GPLv2 was something that was fairly broadly accepted (still with some FUD, but still with a lot of companies using it). the GPLv3 has split the community, with some people eagerly embracing it, but with many people (including many prominent people) thinking that it goes too far. That makes even companies that accepted the GPLv2 move away from GPL code. Some of it is the 'taint' on the name GPL, but some of it is the fact that much GPLv2 code is GPLv2+ code and companies don't want to get stuck with having the maintain a v2 fork or being trapped by v3 so they look to just avoid it entirely.