While I think most of the disagreement in this long thread results from different beliefs in what "freedom" means, I wanted to add, that most of the responses that argue that the MIT license permits the user more freedom than the GPL, suffer from the broken window fallacy. This fallacy results from the short-sided-ness of the user base, as it is only considering the first generation of derivative works.
I agree, that under an MIT license, the first generation of derivative works have more freedom. But any extra freedom gained here comes at the direct expense of all future generations of derivative software. Under a GPL license, it is true that the first generation will have less freedom to distribute their software as they would like. But it also ensures that all subsequent generations of derivative works have the freedom to access all previous derivative works. I also want to add that I think the GPL v3 has exceeded this fundamental concept. GPL v2 really embodies this meaning of "freedom". -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
