Sure I know those things existed, but I just don't see what a photography supply store, a failed DVD pseudo-rental scheme, the planet the xenomorphs were found on in Alien, a food processor, an exclamation of surprise or amazement, and that other crap has to do with processor performance!
AMD could outsource production to those who have competitive process tech.
Intel is the undisputed front-runner in process tech. The closest thing is Global Foundries, formerly AMD's own fabs, which it now outsources production to.
In capitalism the greed is meant to be used as a balancing factor. Sure one man is a greedy fucker who will abuse all of his workers to death... but... there are 1000 greedy workers with less 'power' but just as much greed, and they'll do things to balance it out... like vote.
Voting is not part of Capitalism. Voting is part of Democracy.
In pure capitalism, the workers couldn't do anything but quit and hope they can find employment somewhere else run by less of a greedy fucker (which our premise about human nature says won't exist, or if they did would be less competitive), or strike and hope the greedy fucker couldn't find anyone else desperate enough to take the job.
In capitalism, greed is not intended to 'balance out', because it cannot unless all other factors are also balanced. It is intended for wealth to concentrate as those who have it can, in their greed, use it as leverage to acquire more. It is not intended to create a balance between someone who owns a business, and those who require employment at that business in order to eat. It is intended to exploit and perpetuate that imbalance.
In democracy, in order for the voters to balance the superior capitalistic power of the wealthy employer, they have to vote for something anti-capitalist, like labor laws or minimum wage other regulations that restrict the ability of the greedy fucker to be purely capitalist.
And so the problems with capitalism, and their solution, becomes apparent: Restricting capitalism with democracy. Do not allow the wealthy to exercise the power their wealth gives them with free reign. By providing a non-capitalist source of power that is in proportion to their numbers, not their wealth, a balance can be achieved.
Capitalism works well in these conditions. It is when the mechanisms democracy becomes infected by capital, when the regulations are relaxed for the sake of ideological purity, that the inherent imbalance of power in and thus instability of capitalism shows forth.
Isn't that what makes an CAGW believer a denier of natural climate change as well?:)
No, because non-anthropogenic causes of warming are thought of and examined to see if they can explain what is happening. So far there is a strong preponderance of evidence that they cannot, and that human-created emissions can.
And that's not exactly a convenient conclusion for many of us. Convenient would be if it were natural (or just not happening at all), and we could hope it'd just go away on its own before causing any big problems, or was just a minor blip in our otherwise mostly stable climate. The only hope for it stopping if it is human caused is that humans decide to change how we do things, or by the human civilizations that allow industrial-scale pollution failing. Which, given human nature, seems to be the more likely case. This is not convenient for me at all.
Well yeah, if you're just going to up and use the S-word to describe yourself, then you're clearly not in tune with the current level of American discourse.:)
Heh, well, I thought his explicit endorsement of replacing the progressive income tax with a regressive sales tax in another post was designed to shit on the less well off. Not fully specifying the context when talking about federal taxes seems like making a fart noise in the general direction of the less well off in comparison.:)
Sorry, not to speak up in defense of the OP whose comment i'll just respond to with an eye-roll, but it's not "lying" to suggest that there was an implied context. The context of federal income tax was plenty obvious.
Literalism < contextual understanding. Every time.
The purpose of analogizing to slavery is to quickly and decisively demonstrate how the logic of "Having any restriction is less free than having zero restrictions" fails instantly as soon as you consider it in a context wider than what you, personally, are able to do.
It demonstrates how some restrictions -- namely a restriction against taking rights away from someone else -- maximizes freedom.
Slavery is the example I used because it is uncontroversial. Nobody thinks (and those few who do would never say) that they should be able to own a slave and in so doing strip someone of their rights.
Then the question is whether you value the freedom of software users. The GPL is about the belief that the ability to share and modify computer programs is a right every user should have. It uses copyright law to establish this right, and to protect it. A right is useless if it has no protection. That protection comes in the form of a restriction against abrogating that right -- which, as the slavery example demonstrates, is essential to maximizing this freedom for everyone.
If you believe in the right to share, then the logic is exactly the same. Only the scale is different. Very different, obviously.
If you don't believe in the right to share, and don't want users of your software to be able to have that right, then fine, but you can kindly not participate in the Free Software movement instead of complaining that you aren't allowed to take from the society that does believe in sharing without doing the same.
Just like how if you don't believe in Free Speech, then that is your right, but don't expect anyone to sympathize about how you're less free because you can't keep others from speaking.
Your sentence, as phrased, describes freedom with a significant restriction, which is ipso facto less free than freedom without restriction.
It's only ipso facto less free for definitions of freedom that are idiotically literal -- "number of actions that individual X can be take N, regardless of the nature of the action".
This is not the only definition of "freedom". It is not the definition that matters when thinking beyond the individual. It is not the definition used when talking about a "free society". It's not the definition that matters when talking about Liberty.
You apparently can't see that because you're hung up on calling people "sociopaths," which frankly is a word you do not understand.
Oh I can easily see that there are pedantically literal (i.e. silly and dumb) definitions of "free" for which it is true.
And sure maybe I don't understand the term sociopathy. I have seen psychologists use the term to describe people who have no regard for the rights of others, and are off-put by the restrictions society puts on them in order to protect the rights of others. They consider themselves less free because they aren't allowed to murder.
It's that mentality I'm talking about. If you know a better term for it, bring it hither, but "sociopath" is the one I've always heard.
You can still download the same piece of GPL code that I did, make any modifications you want, or even the same modifications I made. I'm just denying you the right to see my work. The GPL forbids this, which is why it is a "less free" license than the BSD license (and some others). Wanting to share my code only with the people of my own choosing does not make me a "sociopath."
You want to share it with people of your own choosing (which is fine), and deny them the ability to share or modify it further (which is not fine). Even though, being a derivative work of GPL software, your work only exists because of the freedoms you were given in the GPL. Freedoms you now want to deny to others.
So, yes, my original sentence does describe the GPL. To benefit from software freedom, you cannot deny freedom to others. A small restriction for the individual results in maximal freedom for the Free Software society as a whole.
You are, of course, free not to participate in the Free Software society.
You are not, of course, allowed to benefit from the Free Software society while not participating in it by granting others the same freedoms you enjoyed.
You say this makes you less free, not being able to leech.
But surely you see that copyright -- which is the basis of the GPL -- is a property right?
Of an artificial, metaphorical sense (owning a spoon is natural because only one person can be in possession of the spoon, owning an idea is not natural because in nature an idea shared is an idea duplicated so multiple people possess it). Nevertheless it's true that the GPL uses this property right to establish and protect the rights of software users.
In all cases, "you're not allowed to violate my rights" is a technical restriction that maximizes the degree to which everyone can exercise their rights and freedoms.
You are less free because you cannot deny freedom to others even if they want you to do so
I'm less free because I'm unable to become a slave? That's different, at least. There have been people who considered this question very seriously, and the reasonable-sounding outcome is that "freedom to give up my freedom" is only compatible with freedom if you can then chose to take your freedom back. In other words, you never really lacked the freedom, you just chose not to exercise it temporarily.
As Oliver Wendell Holmes put it, the right to swing my fist ends where the other man's nose begins.
Exactly! And this is a symmetric relationship, meaning someone else's right to swing their fist ends at your nose. And thus is freedom (from assault) for everyone increased by implementation of a restriction (against assault). This is not a contradiction in any way, which is exactly my point.
Anti-GPL guy up there is basically saying he's less free because he's not allowed to punch you. That's nonsense. That's a purely selfish anti-social definition of "free", and not the one that is used when talking about freedom and liberty.
To ground this principle firmly in the software space, the GPL forbids you from running the code on hardware that requires mandatory code signing.
Only if it doesn't provide any way for a user to sign code, or provide some other method to run unsigned code like an unsigned-only sandbox (and then only GPL v3, but anyway).
Machines that don't allow that are taking away more than just the user's ability to share and modify code (which is what the GPL is trying to grant), it's taking away their ability to control the hardware in the first place. It's taking away their property rights.
In effect, what we have here is an arbitrary, theoretical freedom that fundamentally cannot be protected without destroying a very real-world freedomâ"the ability to run that piece of software on a piece of hardware
I want to get away from talking about "freedoms" as if the term is equivalent to "possible actions". We're talking Freedom as in Liberty here. Liberty to control one's own possessions, and the Liberty to share and improve computer programs. Whether you ascribe importance to those freedoms or not, that's a bit different than the practical convenience of being able to run a given piece of software on a given piece of hardware -- and it is dominated by practical issues. Long before legal issues get in the way, my ability to run Twilight Princess on my PS3 is foiled by the physical incompatibility. This incompatibility isn't "violating" my "rights". I don't have the Right to expect that a given piece of software will run on an arbitrary piece of hardware.
solely because the hardware in question strikes a different balance between two theoretical rights (freedom to code vs. privacy of the user's data).
A bad trade-off, if you ask me. Complaining about losing the ability to run GPL code on such a machine, when losing the ability to actually own your own hardware is the much bigger loss, seems silly.
Nevertheless, I see your point.
Going back to the point at the start of this post, the problem with these machines is that they take away the right of the user to own their own hardware, and do not give them the option to take that right back. Their only option for doing so is to get rid of the hardware. Which is also their option for gaining back the "freedom" to run GPL software on their device.
"Free to do anything but restrict the freedom of others" is only "non-free" to sociopaths.
Errr, no.
Er, yes, and I don't see how what you said suggests that "free to do anything but restrict freedom of others" is non-free. Instead I see you saying how it's also free to incorporate other rights -- such as property rights -- whose exercise technically restricts what actions others can take, but nevertheless maximizes freedom.
A sociopath would be upset that you intend to deny them the "freedom" to enter your house whenever they want and complain about this "restriction", while fully intending to deny you the ability to do so in their house.
Sorry, I don't know any non-clinical terms for someone who lacks empathy and regard for others such that not being free to restrict the rights of others is considered an affront to their own rights (other than uselessly generic ones like "asshole"). The WP article lead me to believe that 'sociopathy' did not actually refer to a diagnosis. If there's a better term for this, clinical or non, I'd be happy to use it.
Exactly my point. I believe the number of hours spent on non-distributable projects vastly exceeds the number of programming hours spent on distributed projects. Frankly for most people using FOSS in a business, most of the time, redistribution simply doesn't matter.
It was certainly the case (was as in early 00's, don't see why it wouldn't be so now) that the majority of programmers were employed doing in-house or contract work for a specific business' needs, rather than creating software to be sold shrink-wrapped or in per-use licenses. A very large portion of which would probably not be distributed. So that's plausible.
BTW, I'm loving this whole discussion. Very 90s.:)
And continuing to ignore the actual argument in favor of this meta-wankery is exactly what I expected of you.
"Free to do anything but deny freedom to others."
Argue how that makes you less free, in a way that isn't either sociopathic*, or idiotically literal, or please to be shoving off.
* "Only my freedom matters!" ** "If we define freedom as 'number of actions N a person can take (regardless of the nature of that action)' then this is N-1 so less free!"
I was assuming they wished to distribute their project, otherwise the GPL would not have been an obstacle.
If the project is undistributed, then it's neither "free" nor "non-free" since those terms refer to who you allow to distribute it and what they're allowed to do with it.
Ah, the old "you don't do things my way so you're a sociopath" argument.
No, it's the 'ol "Your disregard for the rights of others is so ingrained, you believe it is an onerous restriction on your freedom when you aren't allowed to disparage the rights of others, therefore you are a sociopath."
If you're incapable of seeing how "free to do anything but restrict freedom for others" is actually making everyone more free, then yes, your lack of empathy and disregard for the rights of others indicates you are a sociopath.
That's just the plain facts. You can characterize that as "you don't do things my way therefore..." and that's fine because in this instance "my way" is the way of a free society.
* Or just an idiot literalist, but I'm giving people the benefit of the doubt here.
But you are restricting the freedoms of anyone that uses your GPL ridden code.
Restricting their freedom to restrict freedom.
Anyone capable of caring about the freedom of anyone but themselves -- i.e. not a sociopath -- can see that this minimal restriction maximizes freedom for everyone.
You are not free to own slaves. Therefore your freedom is restricted? This makes you less free? Or is freedom maximized for everyone, because nobody -- including you -- can be made a slave?
All the GPL really does is get in the way. The viral licensing, must-include-source rubbish just means I can't use it to develop other projects.
You can't use it to develop non-free projects. Good.
Which in turn means I'm much less likely to contribute any code back, as it's just coding for coding's sake from my PoV. For some devs this is perfectly fine, and I applaud their effort, but there's no denying that GPLing the code automatically cuts off a portion of the developer base you can never get back.
There is no denying that the GPL cuts off the portion of the developer base who finds the notion of granting their users freedom onerous. Preventing these people from benefiting from the freedom they would deny others is a feature, and the loss of their hypothetical contributions acceptable.
On that note, while sure you're more likely to contribute to a GPL project if you're using it than if you're not... Exactly how likely am I supposed to believe it is that you'll contribute back when the requirement to do so is exactly what you're complaining about?
If it were possible in all walks of life to deny the benefits of freedom exclusively to those who would deny it to others, I would, and that would be to society's benefit.
Slashdot Mirror
Sure I know those things existed, but I just don't see what a photography supply store, a failed DVD pseudo-rental scheme, the planet the xenomorphs were found on in Alien, a food processor, an exclamation of surprise or amazement, and that other crap has to do with processor performance!
AMD could outsource production to those who have competitive process tech.
Intel is the undisputed front-runner in process tech. The closest thing is Global Foundries, formerly AMD's own fabs, which it now outsources production to.
In capitalism the greed is meant to be used as a balancing factor. Sure one man is a greedy fucker who will abuse all of his workers to death ... but ... there are 1000 greedy workers with less 'power' but just as much greed, and they'll do things to balance it out ... like vote.
Voting is not part of Capitalism. Voting is part of Democracy.
In pure capitalism, the workers couldn't do anything but quit and hope they can find employment somewhere else run by less of a greedy fucker (which our premise about human nature says won't exist, or if they did would be less competitive), or strike and hope the greedy fucker couldn't find anyone else desperate enough to take the job.
In capitalism, greed is not intended to 'balance out', because it cannot unless all other factors are also balanced. It is intended for wealth to concentrate as those who have it can, in their greed, use it as leverage to acquire more. It is not intended to create a balance between someone who owns a business, and those who require employment at that business in order to eat. It is intended to exploit and perpetuate that imbalance.
In democracy, in order for the voters to balance the superior capitalistic power of the wealthy employer, they have to vote for something anti-capitalist, like labor laws or minimum wage other regulations that restrict the ability of the greedy fucker to be purely capitalist.
And so the problems with capitalism, and their solution, becomes apparent: Restricting capitalism with democracy. Do not allow the wealthy to exercise the power their wealth gives them with free reign. By providing a non-capitalist source of power that is in proportion to their numbers, not their wealth, a balance can be achieved.
Capitalism works well in these conditions. It is when the mechanisms democracy becomes infected by capital, when the regulations are relaxed for the sake of ideological purity, that the inherent imbalance of power in and thus instability of capitalism shows forth.
Isn't that what makes an CAGW believer a denier of natural climate change as well? :)
No, because non-anthropogenic causes of warming are thought of and examined to see if they can explain what is happening. So far there is a strong preponderance of evidence that they cannot, and that human-created emissions can.
And that's not exactly a convenient conclusion for many of us. Convenient would be if it were natural (or just not happening at all), and we could hope it'd just go away on its own before causing any big problems, or was just a minor blip in our otherwise mostly stable climate. The only hope for it stopping if it is human caused is that humans decide to change how we do things, or by the human civilizations that allow industrial-scale pollution failing. Which, given human nature, seems to be the more likely case. This is not convenient for me at all.
Well yeah, if you're just going to up and use the S-word to describe yourself, then you're clearly not in tune with the current level of American discourse. :)
Heh, well, I thought his explicit endorsement of replacing the progressive income tax with a regressive sales tax in another post was designed to shit on the less well off. Not fully specifying the context when talking about federal taxes seems like making a fart noise in the general direction of the less well off in comparison. :)
Sorry, not to speak up in defense of the OP whose comment i'll just respond to with an eye-roll, but it's not "lying" to suggest that there was an implied context. The context of federal income tax was plenty obvious.
Literalism < contextual understanding. Every time.
Naw, it means it doesn't scan people.
Which makes sense -- when I step in one, I feel like less of a person.
No, he means like how you buy a Dell PC and then put a Half Life sticker on it and say you "built your own computer".
Seriously, you couldn't find an article written by someone who reached the second grade* as the link for something that is actually interesting.
Yeah, or even better, they could have found someone who went beyond a crappy activity book for 2nd graders... oh wait they did!
But feel free to notify the editors of Nature and the authors of the paper that their usage of "non-avian reptiles" in their abstract is wrong.
Make sure to cite the activity book so they know this is legit.
This is where you hide your secret missile codes in photos of cats you post on Flickr.
Or vice-versa.
The purpose of analogizing to slavery is to quickly and decisively demonstrate how the logic of "Having any restriction is less free than having zero restrictions" fails instantly as soon as you consider it in a context wider than what you, personally, are able to do.
It demonstrates how some restrictions -- namely a restriction against taking rights away from someone else -- maximizes freedom.
Slavery is the example I used because it is uncontroversial. Nobody thinks (and those few who do would never say) that they should be able to own a slave and in so doing strip someone of their rights.
Then the question is whether you value the freedom of software users. The GPL is about the belief that the ability to share and modify computer programs is a right every user should have. It uses copyright law to establish this right, and to protect it. A right is useless if it has no protection. That protection comes in the form of a restriction against abrogating that right -- which, as the slavery example demonstrates, is essential to maximizing this freedom for everyone.
If you believe in the right to share, then the logic is exactly the same. Only the scale is different. Very different, obviously.
If you don't believe in the right to share, and don't want users of your software to be able to have that right, then fine, but you can kindly not participate in the Free Software movement instead of complaining that you aren't allowed to take from the society that does believe in sharing without doing the same.
Just like how if you don't believe in Free Speech, then that is your right, but don't expect anyone to sympathize about how you're less free because you can't keep others from speaking.
You mean, exactly like the linked image from the summary?
You mean that isn't a shot of Juno on the opposite side of earth from the sun, presumably taken with a really, really big flash?
How can one detect if a packet is encrypted? How do you distinguish unencrypted binary data from encrypted binary data?
By checking the "encrypted" bit in the TCP/IP packet header. It's right next to the "evil" bit.
Your sentence, as phrased, describes freedom with a significant restriction, which is ipso facto less free than freedom without restriction.
It's only ipso facto less free for definitions of freedom that are idiotically literal -- "number of actions that individual X can be take N, regardless of the nature of the action".
This is not the only definition of "freedom". It is not the definition that matters when thinking beyond the individual. It is not the definition used when talking about a "free society". It's not the definition that matters when talking about Liberty.
You apparently can't see that because you're hung up on calling people "sociopaths," which frankly is a word you do not understand.
Oh I can easily see that there are pedantically literal (i.e. silly and dumb) definitions of "free" for which it is true.
And sure maybe I don't understand the term sociopathy. I have seen psychologists use the term to describe people who have no regard for the rights of others, and are off-put by the restrictions society puts on them in order to protect the rights of others. They consider themselves less free because they aren't allowed to murder.
It's that mentality I'm talking about. If you know a better term for it, bring it hither, but "sociopath" is the one I've always heard.
You can still download the same piece of GPL code that I did, make any modifications you want, or even the same modifications I made. I'm just denying you the right to see my work. The GPL forbids this, which is why it is a "less free" license than the BSD license (and some others). Wanting to share my code only with the people of my own choosing does not make me a "sociopath."
You want to share it with people of your own choosing (which is fine), and deny them the ability to share or modify it further (which is not fine). Even though, being a derivative work of GPL software, your work only exists because of the freedoms you were given in the GPL. Freedoms you now want to deny to others.
So, yes, my original sentence does describe the GPL. To benefit from software freedom, you cannot deny freedom to others. A small restriction for the individual results in maximal freedom for the Free Software society as a whole.
You are, of course, free not to participate in the Free Software society.
You are not, of course, allowed to benefit from the Free Software society while not participating in it by granting others the same freedoms you enjoyed.
You say this makes you less free, not being able to leech.
What is the word for that?
But surely you see that copyright -- which is the basis of the GPL -- is a property right?
Of an artificial, metaphorical sense (owning a spoon is natural because only one person can be in possession of the spoon, owning an idea is not natural because in nature an idea shared is an idea duplicated so multiple people possess it). Nevertheless it's true that the GPL uses this property right to establish and protect the rights of software users.
In all cases, "you're not allowed to violate my rights" is a technical restriction that maximizes the degree to which everyone can exercise their rights and freedoms.
You are less free because you cannot deny freedom to others even if they want you to do so
I'm less free because I'm unable to become a slave? That's different, at least. There have been people who considered this question very seriously, and the reasonable-sounding outcome is that "freedom to give up my freedom" is only compatible with freedom if you can then chose to take your freedom back. In other words, you never really lacked the freedom, you just chose not to exercise it temporarily.
As Oliver Wendell Holmes put it, the right to swing my fist ends where the other man's nose begins.
Exactly! And this is a symmetric relationship, meaning someone else's right to swing their fist ends at your nose. And thus is freedom (from assault) for everyone increased by implementation of a restriction (against assault). This is not a contradiction in any way, which is exactly my point.
Anti-GPL guy up there is basically saying he's less free because he's not allowed to punch you. That's nonsense. That's a purely selfish anti-social definition of "free", and not the one that is used when talking about freedom and liberty.
To ground this principle firmly in the software space, the GPL forbids you from running the code on hardware that requires mandatory code signing.
Only if it doesn't provide any way for a user to sign code, or provide some other method to run unsigned code like an unsigned-only sandbox (and then only GPL v3, but anyway).
Machines that don't allow that are taking away more than just the user's ability to share and modify code (which is what the GPL is trying to grant), it's taking away their ability to control the hardware in the first place. It's taking away their property rights.
In effect, what we have here is an arbitrary, theoretical freedom that fundamentally cannot be protected without destroying a very real-world freedomâ"the ability to run that piece of software on a piece of hardware
I want to get away from talking about "freedoms" as if the term is equivalent to "possible actions". We're talking Freedom as in Liberty here. Liberty to control one's own possessions, and the Liberty to share and improve computer programs. Whether you ascribe importance to those freedoms or not, that's a bit different than the practical convenience of being able to run a given piece of software on a given piece of hardware -- and it is dominated by practical issues. Long before legal issues get in the way, my ability to run Twilight Princess on my PS3 is foiled by the physical incompatibility. This incompatibility isn't "violating" my "rights". I don't have the Right to expect that a given piece of software will run on an arbitrary piece of hardware.
solely because the hardware in question strikes a different balance between two theoretical rights (freedom to code vs. privacy of the user's data).
A bad trade-off, if you ask me. Complaining about losing the ability to run GPL code on such a machine, when losing the ability to actually own your own hardware is the much bigger loss, seems silly.
Nevertheless, I see your point.
Going back to the point at the start of this post, the problem with these machines is that they take away the right of the user to own their own hardware, and do not give them the option to take that right back. Their only option for doing so is to get rid of the hardware. Which is also their option for gaining back the "freedom" to run GPL software on their device.
"Free to do anything but restrict the freedom of others" is only "non-free" to sociopaths.
Errr, no.
Er, yes, and I don't see how what you said suggests that "free to do anything but restrict freedom of others" is non-free. Instead I see you saying how it's also free to incorporate other rights -- such as property rights -- whose exercise technically restricts what actions others can take, but nevertheless maximizes freedom.
A sociopath would be upset that you intend to deny them the "freedom" to enter your house whenever they want and complain about this "restriction", while fully intending to deny you the ability to do so in their house.
Sorry, I don't know any non-clinical terms for someone who lacks empathy and regard for others such that not being free to restrict the rights of others is considered an affront to their own rights (other than uselessly generic ones like "asshole"). The WP article lead me to believe that 'sociopathy' did not actually refer to a diagnosis. If there's a better term for this, clinical or non, I'd be happy to use it.
Exactly my point. I believe the number of hours spent on non-distributable projects vastly exceeds the number of programming hours spent on distributed projects. Frankly for most people using FOSS in a business, most of the time, redistribution simply doesn't matter.
It was certainly the case (was as in early 00's, don't see why it wouldn't be so now) that the majority of programmers were employed doing in-house or contract work for a specific business' needs, rather than creating software to be sold shrink-wrapped or in per-use licenses. A very large portion of which would probably not be distributed. So that's plausible.
BTW, I'm loving this whole discussion. Very 90s. :)
And continuing to ignore the actual argument in favor of this meta-wankery is exactly what I expected of you.
"Free to do anything but deny freedom to others."
Argue how that makes you less free, in a way that isn't either sociopathic*, or idiotically literal, or please to be shoving off.
* "Only my freedom matters!"
** "If we define freedom as 'number of actions N a person can take (regardless of the nature of that action)' then this is N-1 so less free!"
I was assuming they wished to distribute their project, otherwise the GPL would not have been an obstacle.
If the project is undistributed, then it's neither "free" nor "non-free" since those terms refer to who you allow to distribute it and what they're allowed to do with it.
Ah, the old "you don't do things my way so you're a sociopath" argument.
No, it's the 'ol "Your disregard for the rights of others is so ingrained, you believe it is an onerous restriction on your freedom when you aren't allowed to disparage the rights of others, therefore you are a sociopath."
If you're incapable of seeing how "free to do anything but restrict freedom for others" is actually making everyone more free, then yes, your lack of empathy and disregard for the rights of others indicates you are a sociopath.
That's just the plain facts. You can characterize that as "you don't do things my way therefore..." and that's fine because in this instance "my way" is the way of a free society.
* Or just an idiot literalist, but I'm giving people the benefit of the doubt here.
But you are restricting the freedoms of anyone that uses your GPL ridden code.
Restricting their freedom to restrict freedom.
Anyone capable of caring about the freedom of anyone but themselves -- i.e. not a sociopath -- can see that this minimal restriction maximizes freedom for everyone.
You are not free to own slaves. Therefore your freedom is restricted? This makes you less free? Or is freedom maximized for everyone, because nobody -- including you -- can be made a slave?
All the GPL really does is get in the way. The viral licensing, must-include-source rubbish just means I can't use it to develop other projects.
You can't use it to develop non-free projects. Good.
Which in turn means I'm much less likely to contribute any code back, as it's just coding for coding's sake from my PoV. For some devs this is perfectly fine, and I applaud their effort, but there's no denying that GPLing the code automatically cuts off a portion of the developer base you can never get back.
There is no denying that the GPL cuts off the portion of the developer base who finds the notion of granting their users freedom onerous. Preventing these people from benefiting from the freedom they would deny others is a feature, and the loss of their hypothetical contributions acceptable.
On that note, while sure you're more likely to contribute to a GPL project if you're using it than if you're not... Exactly how likely am I supposed to believe it is that you'll contribute back when the requirement to do so is exactly what you're complaining about?
If it were possible in all walks of life to deny the benefits of freedom exclusively to those who would deny it to others, I would, and that would be to society's benefit.