On Fri, 8 Feb 2002, Roger Fujii wrote:
I didn't mention cost for the same reason. It seems like a trivial academic exercise to show that something that has LESS restrictions is more "free" than something with more. Hence it is riduculous to say GPL is more "free" than X11/BSD (which is why I wrote that to begin with).
No, it's not. A society where _everything_ is permitted (even murder), is certainly more "free" than one where murder is punished, if we follow your argument. In a very short sighted way of looking of things, maybe you are right. But _overall_, the society which punished murder is _more_ free. This is because in that society mos t people can go about doing what they want without fear of being killed. In the other, only a very small group of strong people can do that, while all the others have most their freedoms denied by this extremly small (but strong) group.
So no, it's not a 'trivial academic exercise' at all.
-- Dimi.