If you love freedom so much why don't you just let people release their software under a license they seem appropriate and you release your software under copyleft?
If Apple's not your friend don't play with them. Don't try to force them into a friendship.
And by the way, political statements are different from religious ones (though the two may overlap). This is not a religious statement.
The answer to your question (which is also a veiled political statement) is that allowing non-free modification and distribution would go against the political goals of the article's author, who believes that when it comes to software freedoms, all liberties should be granted except for the liberty to restrict that freedom. You may not agree with that political ideology, but it certainly makes sense (but bear in mind that disagreeing with this ideology isn't lack of ideology -- which is impossible if you have an opinion on what we should do -- but merely a different one).
The implicit assumption you're making is that developers are not making an informed decision already. I reckon that's not the case, and the developers are informed – they just don't care.
Arguments about long-term, abstract concepts like enduring freedom of software, or the risk of patent litigation for using non-copyleft software, are valuable to have. But these things have a limited impact in the short-term, day-to-day work of developers.
We can't take that for granted. I for one found the article very useful and informing, raising my awareness about this next Apple stunt.
Don't know. It's the whole style. Phrases like "Apple's pathological hatred of copyleft" just don't sit well with me. If you want to educate me: fine, do it. But at least try to avoid sounding like a fanatic.
> their goal is to end copyleft compilers.
Copyleft has nothing to do with this. Apple just want to make a better compiler. If a copyleft compiler is thrown by the wayside in the process, or they choose not to release under a copyleft license, that's just collateral.
Stop being so preachy and making Apple out to be malicious. They just don't care.
"Freedom" is only defined in terms of one's beliefs about human rights. Some people (myself not included) believe that they have a right to view and modify the source code of all software they interact with in any capacity. To those people, there is no "freedom to release software under a license they seem appropriate," because the only licenses that do not violate what they perceive to be their rights are open source licenses.
1) Don't interact with said software if it doesn't fit into your concept of freedom.
2) Write the software yourself.
But forcing someone to release their software in way they don't want to isn't one of those alternatives. (Your freedom ends where my freedom begins).
Sure, you can modify and redistribute any software you have legally acquired. But that means you have to buy out the original author (like in: he hands over the copyrights to you).
As an end-user on the other hand you usually just acquire a license and not the software itself. And as a license is just a contract you are only permitted to do what the license allows you to. Not what you think you should be allowed to.
Don't like it? Don't get a license.
Or, if you don't like it, you can complain like the FSF does, in addition to not getting a license.
(To be clear, by legally acquired, I meant paying a developer for a copy of software. The fact that the developer can dictate what the customer does with the software is the status quo that the FSF is complaining about.)
The only time you're literally paying for a copy of the software is when you e.g. buy a Linux distro on physical media.
Otherwise, you're paying for a licence to use the software - either for a limited time or perpetually, depending on the terms of the licence.
> The fact that the developer can dictate what the customer does with the software
The developer isn't dictating what the customer can do with the software - Adobe isn't telling you that you can't use photoshop to superimpose a supermodel into a photo so it looks like you're friends. Adobe is telling you that you are paying for the right to use the software, not for the right to see or modify or redistribute the source code.
We get it - you think all source code should be open and available for users to tinker with as they wish. The vast majority of the world doesn't work that way, and the vast majority of software developers don't agree with your point of view.
I think most copyleft advocates realize that. So what?