> They have always been about freedom first and software second, and Stallman has many times stated that he'd rather a program be used less if it results in more freedom, than vice versa.
I think I disagree with your interpretation, but I think my disagreement hinges on a semantic disagreement about the word "freedom." To me, the GPL is a legal limitation on freedom. It prohibits certain use cases, like distributing that software without its source code. To me, a piece of software is "more free" if its source code is available, but people are still able to do literally anything they want with the source code, including distributing binaries without providing access to the source code. I think the point of the GPL is to utilize the copyright system to ensure access to source code for everyone, not to simply increase freedom.
The slavery quip doesn't really make sense, because in that analogy the source code is the slave. So unless we're talking about increasing freedom for source code (which is a strange notion, since most source code is not conscious) rather than increasing freedom for people, my disagreement still applies. The reason forbidding slavery is not generally considered a decrease in freedom is that both slave owners and slaves are people.
I think I disagree with your interpretation, but I think my disagreement hinges on a semantic disagreement about the word "freedom." To me, the GPL is a legal limitation on freedom. It prohibits certain use cases, like distributing that software without its source code. To me, a piece of software is "more free" if its source code is available, but people are still able to do literally anything they want with the source code, including distributing binaries without providing access to the source code. I think the point of the GPL is to utilize the copyright system to ensure access to source code for everyone, not to simply increase freedom.
The slavery quip doesn't really make sense, because in that analogy the source code is the slave. So unless we're talking about increasing freedom for source code (which is a strange notion, since most source code is not conscious) rather than increasing freedom for people, my disagreement still applies. The reason forbidding slavery is not generally considered a decrease in freedom is that both slave owners and slaves are people.