The free software movement founded at that time has not simply created the most successful copyright licence ever, it has acted as a guide to other, similar movements, including open data, open government and open information systems, such as Wikipedia. It is the same principles that Vint Cerf applied in 1983 when he "invented" the internet.

The most recent incarnation of the GPL is version 3, GPLv3, which was released in 2007 after several years of consultation with members of the FOSS (free and open source software) community -- including major corporations such as Apple, HP, Nokia, IBM, Sony and many more. This version of the GPL improved internationalisation, fixed "bugs" and clarified the language around patents. Roughly three quarters of FOSS projects use the GPL.

Fast forward to July 2009. Google is reporting that half the GPL projects it hosts are now using the GPLv3 -- that is roughly 56,000 projects hosted by Google alone. In the world of active projects GPLv3 adoption is even greater.

So why, in this web services world, is the GPL still so popular and still so relevant. There are a number of reasons:

: The GPL's purpose has been extremely clear and consistent for nearly 25 years. It turns software licensing on its head to guarantee freedoms to users rather than the normal protection of rights of developers.