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GPL vs BSD all over again. Freedoms conflict. The one "freedom" RMS would restrict is the freedom to restrict the freedom of others (one's users). One has to chose at some point. Since there are more users than creators, the freedom of many users is more important than the freedom of one creator. (Assuming any two humans have roughly the same moral value.)
So yes, we would restrict a bit of freedom. But that's the only way to prevent even greater restrictions.
By the way, RMS never called permissive licences evil. Just weak. And he's not opposed to GPL/proprietary dual licencing, as long as the two versions are the same. It's not weaker than a permissive licence, and the creator has another way to make a profit.
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Oh, and they did an episode immediately after that show where they decided to talk about RMS's arguments "behind his back" so-to-speak[2]. Personally that episode is the reason why I stopped watching LAS, because it was clear that their own personal biases were getting in the way of what they were talking about.
Other people have already debated the reasons why user freedom is different to "vendor freedom" (and why the former is more important than the latter). In short, it's the difference between "freedom from being harmed" and "freedom to harm others". Also please remember that vendors are also often users, so user freedom does benefit them as well.
[1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S0y0oXU8YNk [2]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fn9WWVmINGg
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I hope you're aware that this is the oldest argument in the book.
It literally goes back to Plato and arguments about how you can be free if you're not free to make other people slaves.
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So defending the freedom of the creator to sharing software under her own terms is way less important than defending the freedom of users.
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That is the essential question you must answer. Arguments against are legion: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opposition_to_copyright
The GPL license is not an end in itself. It is simply a holding action – a means to carve out a bit of freedom for end users using the current rules of copyright.
(Replying to PARENT post)
That is the Open Source vs Free Software debate in alot of ways
Stallman and the Free Software movement is about the USERS freedom, ensuring that the END USER of software retains the rights to modify, use, and examine the software they use
Where Open Source is mainly focused on the DEVELOPER of the software, most Open Source advocates are developers that want to have their libraries, dev tools, frameworks, languages, compilers, etc all open so they can create closed software for end users, and use code interoperably between projects with out having to worry about Licensing, this is why Open Source favors MIT, BSD, and other non-copy left licenses, where Free Software is GPL
Also you might want to watch the newer interview between Byran Lunduke and Richard Stallman
(Replying to PARENT post)
How is rms doing that? Has he been granted lawmaking powers?
No, he is only putting conditions on the software he made, nothing more. If selling binaries under any agreed terms is freedom, how can giving away source under agreed terms be restricting freedom? Your position is contradictory.
Meanwhile, rms' position is clear and unambiguous: there are four freedoms that users should have, and software either respects them or not.
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Same thing can be said about slavery. Some very very small minority may be happy being slaves. The rest of the slaves(people who just use binary) just does not know what it means to be being free(the freedom that comes with changing their software they use at will).
(Replying to PARENT post)
to hopefully explain more clearly...
RS's FOSS agenda is promoting some very very specific legal freedoms for all the people in a state. Not "freedom" in general. Not just for software developers or any other niche group. Those freedoms are specific to software as he believes that it's impact on societies, especially democracies is fundamental now and in the future.
If one were to think FOSS is just "open source" or a "nice thing for developers" one would have entirely missed the point. FOSS _is_ a "nice thing for developers" but that is just a side effect. FOSS is a hard-line political tool to very strongly promote specific kinds of legal rights/freedoms. RS drew a line in the sand and never crosses it. Thats why the GPL is so strict. It's the whole point of it.
His use of the word "evil" can be non-obvious. He sees users of software who have had their legal rights restricted via proprietary licensing as having been harmed (possibly in a very small way, possibly in a very serious way) by that situation, even if they entered into it willingly (with or without knowledge of FOSS's philosophy). Even if the proprietary vendor didn't mindfully intend harm, harm can still be done.
RS is not primarily concerned so much about the tiny individual incidents but the "network-effect" they have on society as whole when multiplied by billions. RS refers to that overall effect on democracy as "evil".
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Stallman doesn't.
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Don't forget Stallman saw the destruction of his beloved Hacker Culture of Sharing and Academic Discourse eroded and broken by the LISP machine debacle and the change to a closed anti-sharing approach of UNIX by the newly privatised Bell in the 1980s.
And it was a proprietary printer driver which initiated his epiphany that in a world governed by proprietary software the user would have no freedom or a freedom that could be taken from them so no right to freedom. RMS could easily have made the modification to the driver he wanted but he was not allowed the source code.
From this he invented his four essential freedoms [1] manifesto and the GPL which allowed developers to develop with out fear of the closing of their contributions behind paywalls.
In the early 1990s the Linux kernel flourished with its GPL license ensuring it remained a bastion of freedom.
As Stallman advocates for a future where users have maximum freedom then proprietary software is opposed to that.
If I use Photoshop over GIMP and write tutorials and encourage others to use Photoshop then the world is a little less free for those users in the sense of the four essential freedoms [1]
By this definition proprietary software is opposed to Stallman's vision and insiduously so.
To oppose the freedom of others is in RMS's eyes not a good act, thus it can be rightly called evil in that context and IMHO he is not wrong in this.
Proprietary software 'may' not steal your freedom today but it can lock away your contributions and data tomorrow and one has no recourse - Stallman having lived through this wishes to oppose it and fight for the right to Freedom for us all and forever.
His is a glorious vision and he is not wrong, without free software competing with it, proprietary software would likely offer much less freedom and can and has taken what freedom it offered away !
We will live in an increasingly computerised and robotised society. We must choose : will we only have tenuous freedom exchanged for conveniences and mind-candy, rescindable freedoms only for some given by the whim of corporations; or will we work together on GNU and other Free projects and live as Free peoples of the solar system ?
Free as in Liberty, Egality, & Community.
[1] https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.en.html
Oh ye of little faith, history has so far found that :
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How does he reconcile this with, say, being in possession of his own DNA, but not knowing how to compile from source.
Is RMS really free if he can't inspect, modify, and tinker with, his own software and hardware.
In the RMS World there would be no life allowed unless all life came with GPL'ed Abiogenesis.
Because non-free abiogenesis is unethical.
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In a world, where almost all software was proprietary, and open source only made sense if you're living in towers of academia - RMS made sense and contributed greatly to society. Nowadays - not so much.
It isn't worth it to restrict freedom of creator and force him to write open source software for minimal increase in the freedom of the users, when there is already an open source alternative for the given task.
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When you attack his values and stances, he falls back to that sentence. When you argue: But aren't you restricting freedom when you would keep a creator from sharing his software under his own terms? He comes back to "Proprietary software is evil" in the end. He is incapable of defending beyond that point. I think Bryan makes some very good points in the podcast below [0] that RMS fails to answer properly to.
I love open source, I love the philosophy, I want to use as much FOSS as possible and I see how it ultimately will protect our society, I get that. But I see no evil whatsoever in someone making a software tool and selling only the binaries to someone who is happy to use said binaries under the terms the seller and buyer agree upon. That to me is freedom, nobody is forced in that scenario.
[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=radmjL5OIaA