[jwitthuhn]

I see that sentiment largely coming from developers who, I think, misunderstand the freedom that the GPL is protecting.

The GPL focuses on the user's freedom to modify any software they are using to better suit their own needs, and it does a great job of it.

The people saying that it is less free than bsd/mit/apache are looking at it from a developer's perspective. The GPL does deliberately limit a developer's freedom to include GPL code in a proprietary product, because that would restrict the user's freedom to modify the code.