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Being Free is Hard to Do
ValourX writes "What is more important to you -- the four freedoms of Free Software, or the ability to maximize the value of your computer? It's a question that comes up on Slashdot often, but rarely is it so well argued as it is in this NewsForge article. How important are the FSF's four freedoms to you? What are you willing to sacrifice for those freedoms?" NewsForge and Slashdot are both part of OSTG.
If it was 'free software', people wouldn't pay me. I probably wouldn't bother writing it in the first place. There are no free alternatives.
Non-free software or no software. What would you rather have?
Personally, I'm willing to sacrifice the convenience of flash animations, or of photoshop, for a free (as in beer) solution. I'm cheap. The fact that the free (as in beer and in freedom) software often is excellent quality, FreeBSD being my favorite, doesn't hurt either.
However, I can see it being an impediment to adoption of free software because of the sometimes unreasonable demands placed by restrictive licences. The GPL does prevent advances and progress in some cases, such as device drivers, that otherwise would be possible. Same with flash and other non-free media solutions, whether DRM or CSS on DVDs or what have you.
I myself feel however, that sacrificing utility for the benefit of using a free software package, is only rational if the resulting loss in utility is no greater than the benefits. However, it is easy to quantify the benefit of free as in beer software, but harder to economically evalutate the benefits of free as in freedom software.
He doesn't even try to actually make a connection between the apparent premise and the apparent conclusion.
Direct quotes:
But he doesn't say WHY anyone with these high-moral ideals should let go of them.
Again, why not? Because it makes him uncomfortable to be asked to make "unfavorable sacrifices"?
There are some areas which are well supplied by free software. in many of them, the free software is markedly better than the commercial competition. These seem to be things like Operating Systems and Web Servers.
Other things seem to be best supplied by the commercial market - Doom3 & the nvidia drivers that let me play it on my linux box, for example. These things are all good, and there is a place for all of them. Jumping up and down about whether they meet RMS's definition of 'Free' or not is a waste of time, imho.
Sitting Walrus Blog
A dozen posts & already many that confuse no-cost software with software that you can do anything with, including viewing & modifying the source & sharing it with others.
A love for zero-cost software isn't bad. I see a lot of people coming to the F/OSS movement because of it. They could run a warez copy of Photoshop, but then they discover the GIMP. After a while, they may discover the fantastic quality of software available & may try more of it. They might discover how wonderfully helpful and intelligent the community is--they are eager to help & are eager to have you contribute back.
I probably wouldn't have started to use F/OSS if it was priced unreasonably. But now I find the other parts of freedom to be much more important. It is frustrating to find commercial software that is stagnant. Bugs are always present in any software (some of which are security vulnerabilities, some of which are just annoyances that I have run into). But with F/OSS, I can usually see if a bug has already been reported, look for solutions, or report it & wait for insight from others. I'm not much of a programmer, but I can also sometimes discover a fix myself. The frustration of not being able to have this basic ability with some nonfree software is horrid.
I recently started to contribute a small amount of money each month to software which I use every day--which I depend on for entertainment and to get my work done. Paying for free software?! Well, at least it is tax deductible & it does make me feel good.
I would definitely say that the four freedoms are more important than zero-cost.
very important... and a lot of people don't really get why... anyone who bitches about his gpl'd program being used by the military to suppress indigenous tribes with fails to appreciate that vital freedom. It's double edged and you have to fully appreciate this. If your conscience can't cope with it, then don't release it under an open source license. Use your own license to tie it down so that you can deny them the use of your program.
Donald 'Duck' Dunn: We had a band powerful enough to turn goat piss into gasoline.
Nothing prevents you from rewarding the better software by donating to FSF projects.
"Free as in speech, NOT as in beer."
A stupid question. The computer is not valuable if it does not achieve the results you want. The kind of software you use to achieve the results is immaterial. Whether you choose to pay for software that enables those results is a simple economic judgement for you the user. When (or if) Free or Open Source alternatives enable better results then they are a better choice. Any other view is simply naive political idealism and has no place in any discussion of value.
.0001 of all computer users, and does not relate at all to the value derived from the software, more to the value you choose to return to the community at large.
Whether you choose to go into the source and make changes is a question relevant to about
At least as considered by any business who'd want to ingegrate anything, even as miniscule as a c file with 3 functions that calculate CRC.
What's missing is just like "The freedom to improve the program, and release your improvements to the public" only the opposite -
"The freedom to improve the program, and not release your improvements to the public" (or sell said improvements to the public for profit)"
This is the issue commonly called copylefting.
What it comes down to is "Free for anyone who's part of our [opensource] club" as set forth by the GPL (If you're a Checkpoint dev, a legal obligation to release all/parts-of the source code of the product makes whatever ran you into that obligation anything but free), or "Free to anyone. Period." as set forth by X11/modified-BSD licenses. The latter offer the fifth freedom.
The obligation [e.g. lack of freedom] to integrate GPL code with [often immense] business-owned closed code serves on one hand to spur [few, IMHO] businesses to go opensource, while keeping a dark "obligation" cloud over Open Source that scares the rest away. I personally ran into this dillema at my former workplace. The result was us using BSD-licensed and commercial solutions, while [to my great dismay] avoiding GPL-code like the plague.
The LGPL is a fair compromise, unfortunately few projects use it. Sometimes you need code from a GPL app, and you're willing to wrap it in a library yourself (and offer that library's code to the public) but since the original dev never considered this and just slapped the GPL on his work, and you can't use it (whereas had he done so with LGPL, you would be able to do so).
The conclusion (which promptly earned me two flamebait mods last time I said this unliked piece of truth here) is that everything GPL is quite unfree to those [nice, evil, fill your own description] people who pay us coders our salaries and feed our families.
I, personally, as a coder who wants to tap open source where I work, would definitely like it to be otherwise. For the GNU codebase to be as legal-obligation-free and accessible as the X11-ilcensed or mod-BSD-licensed codebase (and a big thank you to anyone altruistic enough to use those licenses on his donated code).
Wishful thinking I guess...
-
Sure, we can all debate the relative merits of GIMP and Photoshop's interfaces, the joys of flash and brew, but the article points why the current environment is unfavorable to free software. It's not so much that commercial software is superior; rather, the freedoms are, in the current environment, irrelevant. Free software only becomes viable when all users are forced to pay for commercial software; that is, when those freedoms (or at least the first three) are enforced across the board. Sticking with the photoshop example, I'm sure there are tons of semi-legitimate and pirated copies of photoshop sitting on people's computers doing relatively simple tasks that could be done just as easily as with GIMP. Let's say Adobe finds a way to shut down all those non-revenue-generating copies. What happens? Maybe Adobe will see a little more revenue. More likely, the the user base of GIMP will increase one hundred fold. Suddenly those freedoms are more than hollow idealism in a pragmatic world, but actually mean something. More users mean more development. Then your Open Source Worker's Paradise is fast becoming a reality. ...and that's when Microsoft forms a coalition with software publishers to build in a costly DRM system that requires every software product to be encrypted to an individual machine in order to work.
What do you want to pay today?
I suppose that depends on how you define "value". Personally, having Free Software and using Free Software has done more to "maximize the value" of my computer far more than anything else I can think of.
:) Surely there are people who need software available only for Windows that is actually required to do their work, luckily I'm not one of them. Besides, I find Linux simply more comfortable to work on, though some things could obviously be improved, but that's a totally different topic.
My thoughts exactly. The only reason I'd need proprietary OS (ie. Windows) on my PC is to play games -- not having it saves a lot of my time
Look up the following: Mplayer, Kaffeine, Xine, LibDVDRead and BZFlag
Dude, you are preaching to the choir. I am a full on linux junky and have been for many years. But tell me, who's the fool: My boss (who has been in the computer business for 30 years) who is given a perfectly capable dual boot(linux/xp) laptop and asks me how do view a dvd under linux OR my wife with fuckall computer experience who can buy an ATHF dvd off ebay, stick it into her XP laptop and be watching it (with sound) inside of 10 seconds?
Me? I will spend the hour or two it takes me now (as opposed to the weeks or months it would have taken me 3 or more years ago) to figure out how to get it to work. My boss - I'll set it up for him, 'cause he's an idiot. My wife? She'll have watched the dvd three times before I'm done.
What about the 5th Freedom?
....
:)
Free as in $29.95
Seriously though.. I've made a lot of money selling (my) Free Software for $29.95...
I just had the source in CVS. If you were smart enough to checkout via anoncvs and to the build yourself that was fine.
If you needed help and wanted a really nice installer it cost you $29.95...
This let me work on my little project full time which then turned into a company.
We're 7 people now
Im going to bite this troll...
... what about all those developing countries who are choosing Linux/FOSS are they and their people not going to benefit directly or indirectly from the fact that their goverments have less ties with redmond in america?
Simply by saying that you probably dont realise quite how much influence free software is changing the world its not some small bunch of hippies with some ideal to legalise pot. If free software and those that extoll the virtues of it did not exist your world would probably be very different. Have you ever used google ? have you ever looked at a website running on linux/bsd/apache ? ever downloaded a bittorrent file? or ripped a dvd?
The chances are that you have - and all of these things were made possible to you by people excercising their right to create, use and modify free software.
Free software people dont "want" to change the world, they "are" changing the world - and the chances are my friend that you have benefitted from it in many many ways. And ask yourself this question
Electronic Music Made Using Linux http://soundcloud.com/polyp
The people at your former workplace did exactly the right thing by avoiding GPL code. I'm sure you would say people not willing to honor the terms of your company's licenses (i.e. no sharing, pay for each copy, etc). should not use your company's code. So I don't see why you have trouble with the notion that people not wanting to honor the GPL's terms shouldn't use GPL code.
I myself write closed source code sometimes, but I expect to get paid for doing it. When I write code as a volunteer, it's GPL. I don't see why I should want to do development for your closed source product so you can get money for shipping my code, unless I'm getting some of that money myself. If you want to use the closed source policies to charge people to use code, write the code yourself or pay someone to write it. In wanting to use GPL code in closed source products, it sounds to me like you're just a freeloader looking for a handout.
I think most of us have forgotten that it took great sacrifices by our ancestors to get the freedoms (in society) that we currently enjoy.
I would argue that without sacrifices we cannot achieve freedom. It seems to me that the sacrifices the FSF are asking us to make are significantly less than those made by our ancestors.
That said, I do agree with the basic premise of the article that we often need to use proprietary software to achieve our needs. The solution is better free software - not giving up the fight.
Freedom is not worth having if it does not include the freedom to make mistakes. - Mahatma Gandhi
The goal of the GPL is to make all software free.
The goal of the BSD license is to make all software better.
I hereby place the above post in the public domain.
Hmmm... Wise words.
I remain on Windows for one reason and one reason only: Games. Like many other geeks, video games have become my release (so I don't have to drink.. or hell knows what else). And not a one of the games I am playing right now could be run on Linux. Aside from games, I have all of the tools I need to "live" on Linux.. Internet, email, web programming, software programming.. everything but the games. This is precicesly why I keep an up-to-date and functioning copy of Linux on my drive at all times. It just so rarely gets booted. So unfortunate...
Generally, I think they'll find that most people hold a similar view. OSS advocates often get so caught up in the ideas of modifiability and redistributability that they forget that for most people, it's a total non-issue.
So just because you dont understand or have the ability to modify code its a non-issue? How about the fact that it is modifiable and can be changed by someone who does understand and modify free software can do so? Your should care that software is freely modifiable because you will be the one benefitting when someone else more knowledgable comes along and makes the product better. What happens when the noddy proprietary software vendor goes belly up - bang goes your investment - but if their product was free open source, and the software was of any great merit you can bet your bottom dollar that there will be plenty of foss developers getting their hands dirty.
Just because you are unable to do theses things yourself it doesnt mean that you shouldnt care about it being important - you benefit from it all the time without even realising it.
Electronic Music Made Using Linux http://soundcloud.com/polyp
Look, I'm going to be honest with you. I'm an advocate, user, and even author of open source software. I can't, however, call myself a granola-eating-die-hard-free-software-purist. There are several reasons why this is true.
;-) We not only write proprietary but also buy licenses to proprietary libraries for use in our software. We don't buy proprietary libraries for the fun of it. We buy them because they will either make our work easier, make our applications better, or both AND they do it better than any open source alternatives we've evaluated. This brings me to my point.
At home I use open source software (almost) exclusively. My systems run on Linux or BSD. I use open source UNIX-like environments because I like the open source philosophy and because the software that I want to use works best on these platforms. In other words, the software that is really valuable to me as user turns out to be open source software. As a programmer, I also value the source code freedom. I can look at the source and learn how the programs work. I can make them work differently if I want to.
However, I say "almost exclusively" because the one exception is the operating system in my cell phone. I certainly could have bought a cell phone that ran on Linux but it turned out that for the features I wanted, the Linux based phones ended up being more expensive (due to extra hardware I didn't need or just price differences between brands). In this case, I wasn't prepared to pay more money for a phone just to have it running on Linux.
Another blemish on my "software purity" is my work life. I work for a software company writing proprietary software. I do this because I need money to live and that was the job I ended up with.
The masses at large aren't going to use crap software, not if it's open source, not if it's closed source (queue Windows jokes). The hard facts are that users are going to use software that gets what they need to do done. They're going to use software that does what they want and does it sufficiently well.
If it turns out that nothing but proprietary software does exactly what you want, does it well, and the license cost is fair, then hell, you should consider using it. Your typical end-user doesn't value the source code to an application because they don't know what to do with it. When making decisions about the software you need, you'd be stupid not to consider open source software, but from a business (or even a home user) point of view you'd be equally stupid to use open source software for the sake of using open source software if the proprietary software does what you want better.
So, to sum up, I'm afraid Practicality wins over Philosophy in the software world.
The thing that bugs me the most about a lot of the people that complain about a Free Software alternatve to a commerical program not being an effective replacement, is that often those people have not actually _paid_ for the commerical software that they say is so much better.
Those that have forked over $1000+ for specialised proprietry software (Photoshop, Cubase etc) are the ones that have the right to say the features of the Free Software replacements are not up to scratch.
Those who are using warezed versions and have no intention of ever purchasing the software, but say that the Gimp is no Photoshop aren't helping the cause, and show that they have no real interest in advancing the state of Free Software - they just want to get everything for nothing.
Advanced users are users too!
In a way, FOSS has forced me to learn a bit more about what I'm using....The subjective here is have I lost or gained? Me? I reckon I've gained.
And that is the defining difference between me/you (0.0001%) vs my wife (99.9999%) of the world. I want gain computer knowledge and experience whereas my wife, well, she wants to watch Ignignot cleverly trick Meatwad into stealing racks of DVDs and to smoke while he does so.
Plugins can only take advantage of a small, previously exposed API. If the improvements you wish to make are not possible using that API, freedom #3 can not be true.
Oh nice. A hurmorous retort gets modded down almost immediately, but the same poster posts two other responses and gets no notice. Yeah. Moderation works real well here on Slashdot. Yet another example of fucking asshole moderators without a fucking clue.
RMS has dealt with this argument time and time again, explaining why he thinks that freedom is the highest goals of all. And I agree with him.
The world needs more thoughtful idealists like RMS, and even more people who listen to what they say.
I'll take four hours installing GNU/Linux over four hours trying to recover from the latest virus invasion on my Windows system any day. Really. How many people do you know that run Windows who haven't had some terrible corruption issue from spyware, viruses, worms, etc?
This four freedoms discussion is more interesting if we're talking about whether to use Photoshop on Mac OS X over the GIMP or whether we're comparing Oracle on some proprietary Unix over postgresql or mysql on GNU/Linux.
I do not have a signature
"I hate the Bizzaros...except for turtleface, he's cute."
"...I HATE the Stallmanites....especially Richard, he's a fucking Nazi."
I know I'll get modded "-10 million, flamebait" because most of you hang out RIGHT HERE. You don't have a "right" to my sourcecode, period. You have a right to use free software, but you don't have a right to make me starve! I'm sick of people asking for the source of my apps just because they listen to that man like he's God or something. When I find that it's no longer paying the rent, I'll open it up. But as long as I sell a piece of software that outperforms your GPL'd equivalant, I eat - the end.
Why can't all fpga/microcontroller manufacturers just release free optimizing compilers???
Here's the first paragraph from gnu.org's philosophy page:
Free software is a matter of freedom: people should be free to use software in all the ways that are socially useful. Software differs from material objects--such as chairs, sandwiches, and gasoline--in that it can be copied and changed much more easily. These possibilities make software as useful as it is; we believe software users should be able to make use of them.
Note the emphasis on useful. The argument, contrary to the typical sophist presentation of it being some kind of political viewpoint developed sans any consideration of practical concerns, is eminently pragmatic. By embracing the freedoms the FSF espouses, better software can be produced and made available to you faster than if the know-how is balkanized and made unuseable by innumberable vested proprietary interests.
The counterargument is usually something as simple-minded as "but proprietary software package X does Y, which I like, and there is no free alternative". Forget theory for a moment, the countervailing free software argument is empirical. As the free software movement continues to gain momementum, the number of such examples continues to diminish. Despite the historical record, people continue to say things like "the free software model works for some kinds of software, but software category X isn't amenable to a free software solution, only proprietary will do". It's been said about databases, for example. It's been said about GUI desktop applications. It's been said about multimedia applications. And in every case, free software has put the lie to such assertions.
"The proof of the pudding is in the eating", as they say. Free software is going to eat proprietary software's lunch, in every category of software imagineable.
Because it leads to fencepost errors, where the index number of the program is mistakenly used to count the number of elements in the list. You don't actually debug other people's code much, do you?
Along with everyone who is not a developer, I'm not likely to have any interest in three of those freedoms: Studying the source, redistributing copies, or changing the program for the benefit of the community.
So long as I can use the damn thing, those other 3 freedoms don't interest me.
I'm interested in using computers. I am not interested in writing code. (It's a parallel to watching TV: We all watch TV, but very few of us are interested in learning how to build a television.) Studying the source is of not interest to me, as is changing it.
As a corollary, I believe the only "community" that exists here is a small number of developers who support free software for ideological and political purposes. Otherwise, free software users are no more a community that are Windows users. (An analogy might the small number of vegetarians who actively lobby to for their dietary beliefs versus all the other folks who simply choose ti eat that way.)
I'm interested in more and better software. If some of that can come from free software developers, fine. If some of that can come from proprietary developers, fine. Frankly, though, little new and innovative software has been coming from either source for several years.
-- Slashdot: When Public Access TV Says "No"
Do I value the 4 freedoms more than free price. Damn yes! I've got a GNU/Linux box at home and a Windows box at work. In *no* way do I prefer my Windows box. Some of the apps are nice on it, but *every* time I have a problem with any of them I find myself screwed. If I phone the developer for "support" (which my company pays for) all I get is, "We're aware of the problem and may fix it in the next release". That's it! No other options! And notice, "may fix it". They don't even tell me if it's going to be fixed. And when a new release comes out, I've got to buy the damned upgrade *before I know if it's fixed my problem!* Not only that, I can't just get a patch for my old release with just my problem fixed.
Do I value the 4 freedoms? Hell yeah. How much money would I pay to have those freedoms? Lots, I tell you. Those 4 freedoms are worth more than the cost of a support contract.
Of course, I'm a programmer, so I'm biased. Some people aren't programmers and may not realize the benefits of freedom the way I do. But let's take the example of a friend of mine. She wanted to do some word processing for a report that she had to write. As I worked at Corel at the time, I happened to have a copy of Word Perfect which I gave to her (it's useless to me...). Well, it turns out it was useless to her too. First of all, it was too complicated and confusing for her (She's not a computer person and she didn't need all the features). Secondly the thing was full of bugs on the features that she did need. Constantly, I got calls of "Miiiikee!!!! Fiiiix it!!!!!". I tried to tell her I couldn't, but she didn't understand.
Eventually I got sick of it and replaced it with Abiword. But not stock Abiword. I ripped everything out if it and gave her a stripped down version. Then any time she asked for a new feature, I added it back.
Do I value the 4 freedoms? Hell yeah. Everyday, I program on a Windows box because the market for my latest companies product is Windows. However, I've been tasked with writing portable code (to port to *ix and Mac). To me this means POSIX. But many of the damn POSIX calls in Windows are broken. What the hell do I do? I'm not allowed to fix them. I have to completely rewrite them, or put endless #ifdefs in my code.
But here's the irony of this whole thing. I understand the value of the 4 freedoms. As a consumer, I would never be stupid enough to purchase mission critical software without those freedoms. But....
I can't quite figure out a non-consulting business model that would allow me to give my customers these freedoms. My boss understands the benefit of freedom as well, but doesn't want to be a consultant. So for now, *I* deny my customers these freedoms which I value so highly.
And here is where I disagree with RMS. He feels that it is immoral to continue the above situation. He recommends quitting and becoming a waiter, writing free software on the side. While it is *very* tempting to do this, I'm not going to. Free software will not move into all sectors of commercial development without finding a variety of business models. Michael Tiemann found one excellent and successful business model with Cygnus. Research needs to be done to find others.
Working every day in this moronic proprietary world shows me the problems and gives me incentive to do something about them. Some day I hope everyone can realize the benefits of Free software. Until that day, I'm sure we'll get lots of delusional people who actually think that proprietary is somehow superior (what a bizarre thought). I'm not going to waste my effect trying to tell them they are wrong.
That's like saying that if buying a gun is not important to a particular citizen, then there is no disadvantage to not having a constitutional amendment guaranteeing that right.
Just because fewer than 100% of society doesn't exercise a given right, that in and of itself doesn't make it any less important.
There's a fundamental flaw in the reasoning in this article, and it has nothing to do with the definition of free software, or the importance of freedom, or any such deep things already discussed.
"What do we do when we have a substandard free software product that we could use, but would be more productive with a proprietary competitor?"
The author argues, throughout the entire article, about productivity; we're talking about a commericial, professional enviroinment, where money is made through using software.
On the GIMP, "It can of course be made to work in place of Photoshop, depending on your needs and budget. But if you have paying work to do, how much of a hassle are you willing to go through to use free software?"
The author argues free software doesn't offer good enough alternatives to proprietary software, still in a commercial, professional enviroinment.
Continuing,
"The majority of proprietary software licenses restrict the user's ability to use, share, modify, and study the software, but there is virtually no enforcement of these terms in the non-business portion of the software world."
The author argues it's acceptable and risk-free to "share" proprietary software as long as you're not going to use it comercially. While I question the validity of this, let's let it pass for the sake of argument.
Free software is criticized as sub-par for commercial use where a job or a contract is on the line, and it's argued that the benefit of free (speech) software being free (beer) is negligible, since nobody's going to sue you for "sharing" proprietary software for personal use. The article sets the bar for free software in business use, which is clearly much more demanding, and excuses the ridiculous cost of proprietary software commonly used in business since it's okay to steal it, but, erm, if you were to use this proprietary software in the same way the author says free software lags behind, you'd get at least a million dollar lawsuit, and at most a visit from the FBI.
"Well argued" my ass.
They missed:
..but the FSF don't believe in that...
* The freedom to license *my* code any way I damn well choose.
What you're saying is that expedience usually wins out over idealism, and that's true.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
Another interest I had was in how P2P networks work. I had no experience in network programming, but a firm grasp of C/C++; downloading the source to a Gnutella client and poking around did wonders. When I later had to contribute to a network-based application in college, I found myself ahead thankful for being able to reference functioning, stable code.
While the article makes the (valid) point that many people do not have the ability to easily modify the software they use, this ability doesn't just magically appear from nowhere; it's something that has to be learned. For me, seeing examples of how certain things are implemented is one of the most effective way to learn.
Besides, there's always the allure of knowing that if you're not satisfied with a Free software product, you can pick it up, study the source, and fix it yourself if you're so inclined!
We have a winner.
There's no reason to claim that all proprietary software has better UI than FOSS, nor that no FOSS has excellent normal user intuitive UIs. However, there is a huge gap between average UI experience in "popular" proprietary software and FOSS in general.
"normal people" don't want to be learning contorted UIs like geeks groove on. They want to be using functions, fast and as easily as possible. Software with less functions but which gets the user to them faster and more easily is superior in "normal users" eyes.
My spouse is both a longtime UNIX CLI and X user with some CS classes in college, and a graphic artist and designer. What she has to say about the quality of the FOSS graphics tools is unprintable. She's used Macs for graphics and layout consistently, and would probably be ok with Windows programs (whose UIs are now roughly tied with Mac) if the platform didn't suck so badly.
The sad part is that the User Interface ideas are things that can more or less be freely adopted from good commercial products into FOSS, if people cared about the problem...
Freedom is the ability to do something without the fear of punishment.
Close, but not quite. Freedom is the absence of restriction. The difference is crucial. Your definition focuses on the consequences of an action, while the dictionary definition focuses on the ability to perform an action.
To add a necessary clarifying point (with regards to that subset of freedom known as liberty), freedom ends where another's freedom begins. In other words, you cannot use freedom to restrict freedom. At the point where you ability begins to restrict another's ability, it ceases to be liberty and is called "privilege".
Copyright infers upon an author many privileges. The only software that is truly free as in having a complete lack of privilege is public domain software. Licensed software is judged by how much privilege it retains (or additionally aquires through contractual agreements) or gives up. Unrestricted licenses like BSD or MIT have the fewest retained privileges, and conseqently the most liberty. Copyleft licenses like the GPL and LGPL enforce a few more privileges and have a bit less liberty. Both, however, are nearly equivalent with regards to most proprietary commercial software.
Don't blame me, I didn't vote for either of them!