I would understand if Canonical want a new cow to milk, but why are developers even agreeing to this? Are they out of their minds?? Do they actually want companies to steal their code? Or is this some reverse-uno move I don’t see yet? I cannot fathom any FOSS project not using the AGPL anymore. It’s like they’re painting their faces with “here, take my stuff and don’t contribute anything back, that’s totally fine”
GPL would not require that. It would only require publication of the source. There is no requirement to give back or even make your changes compatible with upstream.
Yes, publication of the source is enough. However, you are correct and I should have worded it better. In practice, publishing the source allows the developers of the software to make improvements unhindered by licensing and other IP-based hindrances which are otherwise present in closed-source software
True.
Though, you are probably going to have a much easier time implementing a change to your code that is present in a company’s published code, than you would trying to reverse-engineer a binary.
Sharing of the code I would consider “giving back” in it of itself.