@dick @mangeurdenuage @thatbrickster There is no "mit" or "bsd" or "gpl" license.

MIT released many licenses and there are many BSD licenses.

There is the GPLv1, GPLv2, GPLv3 and also the Lesser and Affero variants.

If you actually read the text of the licenses, you'll soon see which is more free;
MIT expat;
the rights to ***use***, copy, modify, merge, publish,
distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies of the Software, and to
permit persons to whom the Software is furnished to do so, ***subject to
the following conditions***:

BSD 3-clause;
Redistribution and ***use*** in source and binary forms, with or without
modification, are permitted ***provided that the following conditions are met***:

GPLv3;
9. Acceptance Not Required for Having Copies.

You are not required to accept this License in order to receive or
run a copy of the Program.


As you can see, the GPLv3 grants freedom 0 in the most free way.



No version of GPL forces you do to do anything - you are free to run the software for any purpose, make private modifications for your private use without publishing anything and are free to distribute modified or unmodified versions for profit (or without profit).

The GPLv3 just doesn't grant you the power to restrict the software and steal freedom from the users by refusing to provide the source code and installation information to the users (which is a good thing).

If you don't like the conditions, you have the freedom to not use the software or complain to the government that their copyright laws are preventing you from making software proprietary.