[cschwarm]

Because that's what they are.

From Wikipedia: "Dogma is the established belief or doctrine held by a religion, ideology or any kind of organization: it is authoritative and not to be disputed, doubted or diverged from."

Some examples:

* 4 rights constitute Free Software, not 3 or 2 or 1 but 4.

* Free Software is equivalent to Civil Freedom and Human Rights.

* Distributing software without any of these 4 rights makes the act unethical, immoral and evil.

* All software should be Free Software.

Doubt any of these and you are no true believer of the Free Software Movement.

[sax]

The Free Software Foundation defines the traits of Free Software as having 4 freedoms (not rights) and explains them in simple language at http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html.

The freedoms are enforced by the GPL, just like any other EULA. So, trying to question why there are only "4" principles, is missing the point. The GPL itself has several terms and conditions.

So, equating the 4 freedoms to the notion similar to the "religious 10 commandments" and then invoking the argument of "dogma" seems disingenuous.