I would even agree that RMS appropriated the term free, but what your statement that RMS says free == copyleft is not remotely true and contradicted by your "so

I would even agree that RMS appropriated the term free, but what your statement that RMS says free == copyleft is not remotely true and contradicted by your "source." His definition of "free" is aligned with the OSI definition of "open source" (the term he dislikes). RMS is a waterbearer for copyleft because he doesn't respect proprietary uses, but he includes BSD/MIT licenses under his definition of "free." He doesn't include software that has public source but restricts free commercial use, modification etc. This notion of free though certainly isn't what most nonhackers/software people would generally associate with the term. It's his formulation.