This reminds me a little of Android's "freedom", which has mainly referred to OEM's and carriers' freedom, rather than the user's freedoms. If Android was fully

This reminds me a little of Android's "freedom", which has mainly referred to OEM's and carriers' freedom, rather than the user's freedoms. If Android was fully GPL'ed, the carriers couldn't lock down their devices. You could say that Android gives the "freedom" to the carriers to do that - but that's not the freedom that really matters. The freedom that matters is that of the end user. By a "free" and truly open Android, I would normally understand an Android that the user can use it however it wants - not necessarily the vendor. Unfortunately, Android isn't GPL, so that freedom is mainly for the OEMs and carriers to do whatever they please with it, which has also become a pain in Google's butt, because they're taking it in all sort of different directions, fragmentating it. It's also a little like the bill of rights. You're free to do a lot of things, as long as you don't harm others (generally speaking). You don't have the "freedom" to harm others. Same with GPL. It doesn't give you the "freedom" to harm that software and its users and close it down any way you like. That's a real strength of GPL, not a weakness.