I think you may be jumping to conclusions about what I think. I'm generally OK with proprietary software--I use Mac OS X on my main computer. I've paid lots of money for proprietary applications. I've released source under a variety of licenses (including GPL, proprietary and BSDish) and feel that they each have their place. I do feel much better using open source stuff because I know the rug is never going to be pulled out from under me (which happened recently with some proprietary scanner software I bought a few years ago).
BUT, I do think you can objectively measure "freedom" as it relates to software. The people who tend to complain about the GPL being "restrictive" are people that want to take code and release something proprietary. From their perspective the license is forbidding them to do what they want to do and is therefore restricive. But that's only considering themselves and not the people they are releasing the program to which is why I characterized it as "selfish". I think if you step back and look at why the GPL requires you to distribute the source with your binaries it is obvious that they are trying to give your customers the same freedoms you had. That objectively increases the amount of freedom in the whole software ecosystem.
> If you don't understand that's fine, but I am absolutely not restricted by the proprietary software that I choose to use.
Yeah, you are restricted--You are not allowed to compile up the source to your legitimately purchased Photoshop. I fully understand that you don't care (and I don't either [well, until there's a stupid bug]), but to say that you're not restricted is to, I think, misunderstand the situation.
I think that idealistically we agree, and it also seems like we agree on a practical level. We may be in a semantic death spiral, but I'm leaving my long reply here as well since I already wrote it.
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Ok I see what you mean about thinking that the GPL is restrictive is selfish. I don't think it's necessarily bad to be selfish sometimes. Everyone has to earn a living and wanting to do so is inherently selfish. It's difficult to earn a living off selling and supporting open source software. Sure RedHat does it, and Cygnus does it. There are far more failures though. It seems that the best way to create open source software for a living is to work for a big company that sponsors a project such as Linux, LLVM, or something like that. The rest of us sell proprietary software and services and until you have a lot of momentum I don't think it's wise to open source everything. Releasing your project under the GPL or AGPL from day one is scary for most people. Selfish? Absolutely. Necessarily bad? Not in my opinion.
> Yeah, you are restricted--You are not allowed to compile up the source to your legitimately purchased Photoshop. I fully understand that you don't care (and I don't either [well, until there's a stupid bug]), but to say that you're not restricted is to, I think, misunderstand the situation.
It depends on your point of view. There's the point of view that RMS has: we have all been duped by big corporations. We're captives, and just because we like our prison and can't see the fences doesn't mean we are not restricted. This is the "captive" definition of restrict.
Another definition of restrict is to limit someone's movement or actions, as in "restrict someone to", or "restrict something to". Is one really limited if they don't care about those limits? I think this is where it's easy to get bogged down in semantics and philosophy.
Nation states limit and restrict us in many ways. Is that necessarily bad? Technically we are restricted, but is it useful to try and convince everyone that we've all been duped and anarchy is the true way to bee free? What if you just live in a country that is "free enough" and allows you to do what you want to do, without feeling restricted? If I'm thinking idealistically then yes a state of anarchy where everyone behaves in a cooperative and cordial manner sounds like bliss. But unfortunately that just doesn't work in real life.
BUT, I do think you can objectively measure "freedom" as it relates to software. The people who tend to complain about the GPL being "restrictive" are people that want to take code and release something proprietary. From their perspective the license is forbidding them to do what they want to do and is therefore restricive. But that's only considering themselves and not the people they are releasing the program to which is why I characterized it as "selfish". I think if you step back and look at why the GPL requires you to distribute the source with your binaries it is obvious that they are trying to give your customers the same freedoms you had. That objectively increases the amount of freedom in the whole software ecosystem.
> If you don't understand that's fine, but I am absolutely not restricted by the proprietary software that I choose to use.
Yeah, you are restricted--You are not allowed to compile up the source to your legitimately purchased Photoshop. I fully understand that you don't care (and I don't either [well, until there's a stupid bug]), but to say that you're not restricted is to, I think, misunderstand the situation.