> 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?
"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.
You yourself said "your freedom ends where my freedom begins", and if one defines "my freedom" as "my right to modify and distribute the software I have legally acquired", you can see how laws that ban that are against the principle you referred to. It's not that anyone wants to force Apple to release software, it's that the FSF expects Apple to give back users the rights that ought not to have been taken away through unjust copyright laws. Of course, there's always the option of exclusively using libre alternatives, which the FSF does advocate, but from FSF's point of view, that doesn't mean that they shouldn't complain about how Apple is taking advantage of unfair laws in addition.
>"my right to modify and distribute the software I have legally acquired", you can see how laws that ban that are against the principle you referred to.
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.
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.)
> To be clear, by legally acquired, I meant paying a developer for a copy of software
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.
Actually, I don't hold that (FSF) position. I just don't accept the idea that copyright rights are a freedom worth prioritising, and users' rights are a freedom worth ignoring. Also, I don't accept the idea that copyright rights are equivalent to property rights in legitimacy.
These people would claim that it is unjust to distribute any software without providing access to its source code, regardless of the terms of a contract. They probably wouldn't oppose software licensing in theory, but they would require that the source code be available.
I don't think you're understanding my point. These people believe that the existence of closed source software is a violation of their rights, so they too would make the argument that your freedom ends where my freedom begins.
"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.