The parents speaks about USER freedom, not about developers or redistributors. You argue that freedom of developers is more important, and that's fine. But don't say that the GPL does not guarantee more user freedom.
I think you're talking past each other. The GPL only guarantees user freedoms if you're a user of software licensed under the GPL. If you're using non-GPL software, then the GPL's protections don't matter. If GPL software isn't as good as non-GPL software (for many different, sometimes conflicting definitions of good), it will have fewer users and thus the GPL will provide freedoms to fewer users.
