[globular-toast]

Licences like MIT optimise individual freedom: they give each user the freedom to do anything including restricting the freedom of others.

Licences like GPL optimise community freedom: they give each user the freedom to do anything except restricting the freedom of others.

Think of it like local vs global optimisation.

[roenxi]

Although I agree, notice that the only act the GPL compels someone to do is to hand over the source code with the program.

MIT doesn't give people a freedom to restrict because that isn't a freedom. The restriction is always done by the legal system. The GPL is just an attempt to stop the legal system from interfering in the market to restrict user freedom. So both licenses are actually communicating to a 3rd party (a judge) under what circumstances they should restrict the freedom of others. GPL says to stay out of it as long as people are sharing their source code and MIT says get involved sometimes/its complicated.

It isn't a practical difference, but it is philosophically important. The amount of personal freedom both licenses give is technically quite similar.

[globular-toast]

That's right, the GPL and other copyleft licences in fact aim to disable copyright, this restoring us back to how things should be with no copyright.

[GrumpySloth]

MIT doesn’t give anyone the ability to restrict the freedom of others. When you fork a project and use a difference licence for it, the original project remains under MIT.