[steveklabnik]

> That's basically the opposite of the common definition of "freedom".

It depends on which "common definition" you're working from. To make an analogy, both GPL advocates and MIT/BSD license advocates argue that their conception of freedom is "more free."

Rust is closer to the GPL here. By limiting certain things that you can do, you are free to do things that would be harder if you're allowed to do anything. The canonical example here is Stylo; the project was attempted with C++ multiple times, but was too buggy. But Rust's restrictions allowed the Rust version to succeed. You can argue it both ways: Rust limits certain kinds of code patterns (outside of unsafe, of course...) but that may enable you to do things that were too hard to do when there were no safeguards.

(A more generalized version of this debate is the distinction between "positive liberty" and "negative liberty," this debate transcends software.)

[est31]

Yeah Rust forces your program to use certain patterns. But in return, other users can assume those patterns exist. In result, Rust is one of the best programming languages to do refactorings in that exist. You are less free to write code that can be refactored badly, you are more free to do refactors. A sensible trade in my opinion.