This is a purely political decision: RMS wants gcc not only to be free software but he also wants it to be unusable to create non-free derivatives thus making it an active tool in furthering free software. clang undermines this because you can create non-free software based on it thus making it a tool that can easily be used to restrict freedom.
It seems that implicit in this claim is that if non-free software exists, its mere existence restricts freedom. Would that be a fair statement of anybody's position in this debate, or have I gone off the rails?
Will the threat itself restrict freedom? Yes. Can threats cause harm? yes. However, so long its not distributed, no one is threatened.
So, on your question, no, its mere existence will not restricts freedom. The restriction happens once it has been distributed.
We could debate forever on the semantics of which is more free, but I don't think having the freedom to restrict the freedoms of others is going to encourage freedom.
Interesting that preventing users from doing something with a bit of software (e.g. selling non-free derivatives) is considered restricting freedom.
Kind of self evident when stated from the users point of view really.
I use gcc, and I work as a treesurgeon.
My freedom to swing my fist stops at the tip of your nose; my freedom to modify legalese surrounding GPL software stops when it would deprive others of their "four essential freedoms" (in the words of the FSF).
0. The freedom to run the program, for any purpose.
1. The freedom to study how the program works, and change it so it does your computing as you wish. Access to the source code is a precondition for this.
2. The freedom to redistribute copies so you can help your neighbor.
3. The freedom to distribute copies of your modified versions to others. By doing this you can give the whole community a chance to benefit from your changes.
If you don't believe that these are important and should be respected, then you shouldn't be licensing things under the GPL. If you believe these are more important than the restriction imposed, then releasing under a permissive license is not itself "restricting freedom", but all it is doing (compared to the GPL) is enabling "restricting freedom". When the only thing a change does is make a bad thing possible, it's still better not to make that change.
I find it somewhat interesting we have no viral license that protects freedom 0 and 1 in derivative works but allows adding additional restrictions that conflict with 2 and 3 (or don't, which would make it GPL compatible...).
> They have been supported by Apple, the company which hates our freedom so much that its app store for the ithings _requires_ all apps to be nonfree.
> The only code that helps us and not our adversaries is copylefted code. Free software released under a pushover license is available for us to use, but available to our adversaries just as well.
> If that enables GCC to "win", the victory would be hollow, because it would not be a victory for what really matters: users' freedom.
> The existence of LLVM is a terrible setback for our community precisely because it is not copylefted and can be used as the basis for nonfree compilers
Sorry about the charismatic way I presented my views, perhaps I should have mentioned my penchant for eating the raw uncooked flesh of freshly slain animals to make it more clear as to whether I was intending to advocate views similar to Hitler.
You may want to look into these links: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modes_of_persuasion
If there was any persuasion in it, it was to not use irrelevant association since it do not add anything beyond a appeal to emotion, spun around a fallacy. Hitler, like George Bush, creates a guilt by association while the association is irrelevant tied to the subject matter.
The result thus becomes a polite discussion around the more creative ways of eating meat.