The problem isn't the GPL, it's Oracle's patent portfolio, their claims to API copyrights, and their success at killing alternative implementations. And you can't live with that in the long run, because if you're a Java developer, Oracle has you by your balls.

And why would you want to live with that anyway? Java is a shitty language with a shitty runtime and shitty libraries. The only reason it's still in use is because there is so much legacy crap in it and because so many people learned it in college in their intro CS class.

Until then, anything not under Apache 2 is suspect.

You mean like Java?

So why don't they just relicense the .NET CLR and the rest of the packages under the Apache 2 license?

Better question: why do people keep using and defending Java despite Sun's historical legal shenanigans and Oracle's litigiousness?

I mean, I can see rejecting both Java and C# (I use neither anymore), but to argue that Java is somehow OK and C# isn't strikes me as completely backwards. C# might be legally OK and Microsoft might be benign, but Java is clearly legally not OK, and Oracle clearly is anything but benign.

Apparently "we" don't have a long memory of Sun/Oracle's past behavior: Sun's repeated lies about making Java an open standard, their legal threats and lawsuits, the way they killed off independent implementations, and most recently, Oracle suing the pants of Google again. Microsoft played hardball on the business side, but Sun and Oracle have been dishonest, deceptive, and litigious. In the end, Java is both technically inferior and legally more risky than C#.

Yes, it's nice that Apache is open source, and it would be a disaster if the situation were reversed wrt. IIS.

But what I'd really like to see is a lot more diversity in web servers. Apache is a reliable, robust, efficient server, but it is only one, very specific way of serving web data and it has tons of quirks as well (starting with its configuration files).

Having Apache open makes it easier to innovate based on it. But I think it would be even better if more people did something altogether different rather than just plugging into Apache.