Don't say "Free Software", please. Because you actually mean "FSF-compliant" license. Some people don't give the slightest damn what FSF or any other crazy institution has determined to be a "free" (as in thought/speech) software license. In my humble opinion, a true "free" software license is the kind of license that lets you do "whatever the fuck you want to do" with it - in other words, "public domain".
GPL (whatever the version might be), in my opinion, is not a true "free" license because it forbids you to, for example, re-publish the source without attribution or using them without being GPL-compliant or any number of other restrictions. BSD is much better, but still has some restrictions. Even WTFPL[1] is not "free" (as in speech/thought), because it requires you to change the "name" upon re-distribution.
So, yes; Douglas Crockford is harmful to "FSF"-kind of "free software", but I think GPL and BSD are also harmful to the more "idealistic" definition of "free software".
I think the FSF has done enough to deserve a defacto trademark on the term Free Software. Certainly I see no reason why your particular definition deserves to supercede the established convention.
I don't like Stallman the man, but really appreciate everything he and others at FSF have done and I think they certainly deserve a lot. But I personally don't like their definition of "free" (and when they draw the line) and it irritates me when I hear their "free" is becoming the de facto definition. Just like it irritates them when they hear Linux (and not GNU/Linux).
(I haven't done even 1/100000th of what Stallman has done, and don't think I ever will be, but still I'm sure I can criticize him. You didn't suggest I can't - I just wanted to say that I'm aware of this fact!).
GPL/BSD are "restrictive" to protect the freedom of the software. You cannot have freedom without having a rule for freedom. Free software is not anarchy software.
> You cannot have freedom without having a rule for freedom.
Of course you can. Freedom is the lack of restrictions.
I think you're confusing freedom with rights, which do indeed need protection. An argument could be made that what the GPL attempts to do is assert a right to the source code which they protect with restrictions to the developer's freedom. (Just as the right to life is protected with restrictions to the freedom to kill.)
That's just the negative sense of freedom. People mean sometimes a different sense of "freedom" , where to be free to do something implies rights, which then implies duties.
> WTFPL requires you to change the "name" upon re-distribution
Just to be clear: only the name of the license, and only if you modify the license. So it's just the name "WTFPL" being protected. As for the thing being licensed, you are utterly and completely free to do anything you want with or to it.
GPL (whatever the version might be), in my opinion, is not a true "free" license because it forbids you to, for example, re-publish the source without attribution or using them without being GPL-compliant or any number of other restrictions. BSD is much better, but still has some restrictions. Even WTFPL[1] is not "free" (as in speech/thought), because it requires you to change the "name" upon re-distribution.
So, yes; Douglas Crockford is harmful to "FSF"-kind of "free software", but I think GPL and BSD are also harmful to the more "idealistic" definition of "free software".
[1]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WTFPL