@ehashman >why does the FSF list permissive licenses as free software?
Simply because certain permissive licenses respect the 4 freedoms, so those licenses are listed.

I haven't yet read a single permissive license that is decently written mind you.


@neo >sometimes it's stupid to license a short python script as full GPL.
It is never "stupid" to license a short script under the GPLv3 - I license almost all of my software under the GPLv3 even if it is trivial.


There still is some very rare cases where it is more optimal to use a weaker license like the Lesser GPLv2.1+.
Once example is glibc - there was plenty of proprietary libc's already, plus support for software under non-GPLv2 compatible free software licenses was wanted, so it was decided to use the LGPLv2.1+ (which isn't a pushover license either).

Another case where some small changes are to be made in a larger existing free software package under a certain license and it's just easier to license under the same license.