What _about_ BSD?

If my understanding is correct, BSD only started becoming free software in 1989 with the release of Net/1, and even then large chunks of the codebase were not free software.

GNU, on the other hand, kicked off some years before, in 1983.

Free != Open

Here is a good explanation of the difference...

https://www.digitalocean.com/community/tutorials/Free-vs-Ope...

FWIW, I am more on the side of the FSF than BSD on freedom issues, as I value way, way more user freedom than developer freedom.

Developer freedom… I guess you could consider that quite elitist, if you think about it (freedom for the ‰ or ‱).

More to your point, I have seen a lot less outreach on software freedom from BSD than from rms.

BSD is open source, but not "free" in the GNU sense. A GNU license keeps the software free. BSD license keeps the distributor & developer "free," but not the software itself.