The freedom RMS (and the GPL) is focussing on, is the freedom of the SOFTWARE, NOT the freedom of the USER!

Don't get me wrong, I am very much in favour of the GPL, but sadly You don't seem to understand its implications.

I think we can agree that the GPL want's to preserve the rights of all USERS(!) of the software. But the GPL does this by depriving all USER of an important right that only the AUTHOR of the software has: the right to change the licence!

With a "permissive" licence (i. e. MIT-licence) the user (of the MIT-licenced software) has the SAME right as the author, namely to change the licence at will (and then distribute it further under the new licensing terms).
Any recipient of the (now closed) software has THE SAME right as the evil guy who has changed the licence: he can download the MIT-licenced software, change it and then change the licence at will, but he has not the same rights concerning the closed version by the evil guy...

With permissively licenced software any user of the software has the same rights as the original author!

With GPLd software you have 4 rights, with MIT-licenced software you have 5(!) rights.
The 5th right is to take away any right from the recipient of the software, now licence under YOUR terms...

The AUTHOR of GPLd software has the right (as an author) to relicence it under any licence he chooses. The USER of GPLd software does not have the right to relicence the software. This results in the software beeing offered to ALL users under (at least) the GPL.

The USER of permissively licenced software has the right to create a new piece of software, even by only changing the licence, based on the original software with his own licensing restrictions added.
The user of the permissively licenced software has TWO options: Take the permissively licenced software or take the closed version.

If this legal right is morally on the up and up can be discussed at a different time...

The other points about Big Corporations (TM) fear of GPL software and the viral nature of of the GPL are the product of years of FUD by Microsoft, Apple and other closed source software corporations and the failure of their legal departments to understand the intentions and restrictions of the GPL.


Yours

dangerseeker