Karen Sandler and several security researcher want free software freedom in regard to medical devices. They want to verify the code and even out the power balance between those that depend on the code for their life and the producer of it. That too is not about "copy someone else's work without compensation".
Yesterday there was an article that said that voting machines should be open source. The concern people have there is not about "copy someone else's work without compensation".
That has nothing to do with the GPL or the three freedoms though.
But to reiterate the four freedoms:
Freedom 0: The freedom to run the program for any purpose. With DRM this is impossible. The DRM business model to prevent generic parts rely on users not having freedom 0.
Freedom 1: The freedom to study how the program works. Without this researchers can't do inspection of medical software or voting machines.
Freedom 3: The freedom to improve the program. Without this a person can't improve their tractor that they bought, even if they are by law the private property owner of the device.
That leaves:
Freedom 2: The freedom to redistribute and make copies so you can help your neighbor.
So for the cases above, three out of four software freedoms is required.
With a proprietary product, the vendor can make changes behind your back via the auto-update backdoor, and you cannot do anything about it. With an open-source product, if a user does not like what the vendor is doing in the new version, they can just stick with the old version.
(It used to work that way with proprietary software, too, but today I cannot really think of software that cannot be forcefully end-of-lifed by the vendor. For example, look at how Samsung disabled the Note 7 phones with OTA updates.)
The free software freedoms are what allow any end-user to freely choose anyone they want for audits, repairs and extensions of their software, instead of being dependent on a monopolistic supplier. Whether the individual user has any clue of software development is completely irrelevant.
If you don't like the GPL write your own damn software
I agree with the sig, but certainly not with your comment.
So it is basically about the freedom to copy someone else's work without compensation.