I don’t agree with this article but it was interesting: Why Open Source Stifles Innovation: What began as a grass-roots programmer rebellion against commercial software is rapidly evolving into a political struggle that could retard innovation and balkanize the software market.

The “viral” quality of GPL software is intentional: Proponents happily acknowledge that the goal is to undermine incentives to create software that carries a price tag. But for those of us without ideological qualms about software as private property, the wall that GPL erects between open source and proprietary software seems unfortunate.

It is especially unfortunate when government builds the walls. The U.S. government has long been a font of research in software that has made the leap to commercial products. But in the absence of a formal policy, some federal software is being released under the GPL. In fact, NASA, the Sandia National Laboratories, and the U.S. Department of Defense have all distributed code with GPL restrictions.