Hacker News Reader

By taking away one freedom (the right to relicense software under other licenses or exploit the software, analogical to slavery), you grant more people more freedom (the freedom to modify and use *their* software as they please, analogical to abolishing slavery).

View on HN

And yet including the additional restriction "this software may not be used to enslave people" makes the software no longer "free". It's odd how often slavery is mentioned in examples about how free copyleft software is, while the first of the so called four freedoms insists that using software to literally enslave people is a freedom that must be protected.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com