That's exactly what you get when you release Gitea under MIT.
What they are looking for is AGPL.
GPL scares people for stupid reasons (stupid from my fanatical perspective that if you use open source software, of course your derivatives ought to be open as well), Gitea honestly might be so popular because it had a more free license than GPL. Doesn't mean I'm sad to see they're not even trying to make these changes be contributed back going forward.
Citation needed.
That is in the eye of the beholder. Phrasing as 'more permissive' is more accurate.
I'm not saying I morally agree with it, but that's what I understand the word to mean.
More freedom for one organization often translates into less freedom for end users.
That's why GPLv3 has explicit clauses against proprietization, tivoization and patenting.
Otherwise the freedom goes from developers to the first big company and stops there. End users and other developers get closed/patented code or SaaS.
Which is the freer society: one where loud, all-night music in residential areas is permitted with no consequences, or one with restrictions on noise disturbances? Your definition supports the idea that late-night-parties has more freedoms, and I disagree with that. Hence the "eye of the beholder" thing applies.
My own subjective perspective is rather utilitarian: there are more users thsn developers (as developers are also users), hence, user freedom is more valuable than developer freedom, and it is worth restricting some developer freedoms to that end.