MIT license permits you to deny your users the ability to read and modify the previously open code.

GPL license ensures that your users will keep the same freedoms that you got.

Of course, there's an inherent conflict - the freedom to oppress others is incompatible with freedom from oppression.

> Forcing all of your code to be GPL is like saying “I am on a diet, so now I will force everyone else be on the same diet. Freedom!”

Nobody is forcing anyone to use the code.

If they chose to use it they have to abide by the licensing terms because that’s how it works. If the people laboring for free to produce this code don’t want it to be used in a proprietary application then tough luck, write the code yourself.

Every time the GPL comes up someone drags out this same old dead horse to beat on a little bit more.

I really can't see the code being GPL being an issue in that case. What license would you have preferred?

its not about whether its a problem in real life, its about whether the end user might be forced to use a product, which IS a thing, that that is the ONLY point I made

Do you have an example of someone being forced to incorporate GPLed code into their software at gunpoint, or is this a wildly hypothetical scenario?

of course not, but the point was about end users

GPL restricts only developers. As an end user restrictions don't even apply to you

> Forcing all of your code to be GPL is like saying “I am on a diet, so now I will force everyone else be on the same diet. Freedom!”

This is a terrible analogy. Here’s a better one: I’m holding a potluck. If you decide to come, you can eat all you want. If you take food from my event, you can’t hoard it, you must share it, even if you’ve “made it better” by changing it somehow after you left.

Don’t like my rules? OK, don’t come to my potluck.

What you are pointing out is similar to "the paradox of tolerance" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance

By analogy, there is a law against me putting handcuffs on another, and in fact the police would stop me from doing so. Did the police protect freedom? Aren't they restricting me from handcuffing others?

In a similar manner, under the MIT I can restrict my users from modifying and compiling my source code. Is a license that means I have to let my users modify code restricting freedom? Isn't it ensuring freedom of others, in the same way that making laws of "you shall not handcuff others for no reason" is ensuring freedom of others?

Let me provide you with a counter-example.

Suppose that there's a law that states that water and access to it is always supposed to remain public, because water is a public good.

Suppose that someone comes tomorrow and starts claiming ownership of all the water springs in your country, he becomes the only entry point to get water, and you have to pay him a fee every time you open a tap.

Is he still free to do so? In other words, is the freedom of someone who restrict the freedoms for everyone else still a form of freedom that is worth even considering, let alone respecting?

Because the foundation of your ideas is exactly the reason why capitalism fucked things up and just let a bunch of jerks get rich without merit.