GNU General Public License, GPL, LGPL, copyleft, etc.

The GNU Public License and licenses modeled on it impose the restriction that source code must be distributed or made available for all works that are derivatives of the GNU copyrighted code.

While this may superficially look like a noble strategy, it is a condition that is typically unacceptable for commercial use of software. So in practice, it usually ends up hindering free sharing and reuse of code and ideas rather than encouraging it. As a consequence, no additional software bound by the GPL terms will be considered for inclusion into the OpenBSD base system.

For historical reasons, the OpenBSD base system still includes the following GPL-licensed components: the GNU compiler collection (GCC) with supporting binutils and libraries, GNU CVS, GNU texinfo, the mkhybrid file system creation tool, and the readline library. Replacement by equivalent, more freely licensed tools is a long-term desideratum.

[edit] removed extra spaces to avoid HN's auto-formatter

I'll give you folks a hint: the specific quote dleslie responded to says that OpenBSD stuck with GPL2 version of GCC to avoid GPL3.

But, of course, this place being HN, people have attention span of an infant and forget the context by the time they catch something they'd like to respond to :p