They didn’t pull anything back, the code is still publically available to anyone who wants to use it and share their contributions back to the community.

As a side note, I am also inclined to use more permissive licenses, to allow the widest possible use.

But your attitude of “anyone who uses the GPL is a jerk” is way too far.

The idea behind the GPL is to create an all-or-nothing pool of code. Inside the pool everything is free, but you must also share the work you do in the pool.

Outside of the pool you can use the pool, but you can’t distribute it to others without also sharing any changes you made.

It’s fine if you don’t like those terms. There are lots of reasons to not like them.

But to act like people who willingly contributed work to that pool are assholes because they want to protect the contract... I think you’re being unfair.