It's true that the definition of "free" is somewhat overloaded, and means different things to different people. But to say it's not all that meaningful or impor

It's true that the definition of "free" is somewhat overloaded, and means different things to different people. But to say it's not all that meaningful or important is, I think, going way too far. As for your point about creators' freedom with copyleft, that limitation is explicitly to ensure that end users' freedom remains unrestricted. And, by logical extension, that creators are not exploitive of the original authors' efforts. Think of it as "locked open." So yes, it may be less "free" in the strictest sense of "do whatever you want free" - but we as a society have clearly decided that level of freedom is unacceptable (see eg, murder, slavery). GPL has simply chosen to draw the line closer to rights for the people than rights for the ruling class (ie, end users vs corporations, respectively).