>Which has nothing to do with what I asked about my freedoms as a user.
Yes it does. The hypocrisy inherent in this line of reasoning is that the GPL exists specifically because the distinction between "user" and "developer" is a false one. The GPL seeks to protect so called "developer freedoms" for all users. But then misguided GPL advocates turn around and present the false dichotomy of user vs developer in an effort to spread FUD about BSD/MIT/ISC/etc licenses.
>But for the majority of the people, who do not work in the one company releasing the binary, the GPL is infinitely freer
No it is not. Sqlite (public domain) is totally free. I can do literally anything with it. That is maximum freedom. Postgresql (BSD) is less free, I have to follow certain restrictions in order to do certain things with it. Mysql (GPL) is even less free. I have to follow more restrictions. This is trivially simple and obvious, which is why lying about it tends to earn downvotes.
Care to elaborate? Because from reading what you just wrote, I have absolutely no idea what you mean by group freedom here. But one thing I know is that a restriction is still a restriction whether it's one, five, or fifty people who want to do a thing with the code. That is probably not what you meant by group.
From the point of view of someone more sympathetic to the GPL, I'll say that for some it's about sustainability of freedoms. If a proprietary fork draws away the user base (and maybe hires away key developers), I don't lose access to existing code, but updated code becomes substantially less likely and un-updated code (often) becomes gradually less useful. This situation is by no means impossible for GPL software but it's less likely (it can't be an actual fork, so there's more work to be done at the outset).
In the short term, it's reasonable to say that BSD is "more free" in that it permits things that GPL does not. In the long term, the usable versions of that code may not be free at all.
The one arguable caveat regarding BSD's short-term win (which would make it a short-term tie not a short-term win for the GPL) is that the only restrictions the GPL applies are against infringing on the rights of others. In which case, we're not talking about "freedoms" but "powers" being impinged - I'm not "less free" because I don't have the right to kill people, we're all (individually!) more free for not having to worry as much about arbitrary threats to our lives. To the degree this is the case, there's an argument there; the degree to which this is the case is not 100%, though - there are corner cases - but it is pretty typically the case. Whether you buy the argument is of course up to you.
Yes it does. The hypocrisy inherent in this line of reasoning is that the GPL exists specifically because the distinction between "user" and "developer" is a false one. The GPL seeks to protect so called "developer freedoms" for all users. But then misguided GPL advocates turn around and present the false dichotomy of user vs developer in an effort to spread FUD about BSD/MIT/ISC/etc licenses.
>But for the majority of the people, who do not work in the one company releasing the binary, the GPL is infinitely freer
No it is not. Sqlite (public domain) is totally free. I can do literally anything with it. That is maximum freedom. Postgresql (BSD) is less free, I have to follow certain restrictions in order to do certain things with it. Mysql (GPL) is even less free. I have to follow more restrictions. This is trivially simple and obvious, which is why lying about it tends to earn downvotes.