There are already so many ways (and reasons) not to do free or open source software. People who find them convincing are using them. People who don't generally are not.

It seems like the author of the post is just potentially having a change of mind from one side to the other, which barely even seems noteworthy.

> Point the author makes is precisely that they don't want to do free software, and they'd like to convince you not to do free software

Sure, but they are not suggesting any practical alternative by issuing a license that essentially boils down to "Please don't use this if you are evil".

Saying that the author has an almost childlike understanding of what the word "evil" means is something of a slur against actual children - I've got a 6 year old who understands subjective morals better than this author does.

I like the GPL and think its "virality" is both clever and a worthwhile social goal, but I think it's misleading to call it "free". It directly restricts possible usage of the software in question -- yes, in a way that's designed to increase another kind of freedom, but it restricts nonetheless.

FWIW I have the same quarrel with people who talk about a country being "free". To my mind, a truly free country would have no laws. It would be a horrible place, because the restrictions that laws place on us tend to make things better for everyone (we may disagree on this law or that law, but some laws, like "Don't kill someone without a very good reason", would have >99% popular support anywhere in the world).

"More free" does not necessarily imply "better"; it could be better or worse. I'd like to shift usage of the words "free" and "freedom" in this direction, but think it's probably a lost cause as the words are too emotionally charged with connotations of "good".

I'd choose a different framing to that:

MIT: freedom for devs

GPL: freedom for users

AGPL: freedom for SaaS users