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I like your comment best. RMS is looking to fix two "loopholes" in the current GPL license. First is to plug the DRM hole. After all, who'd have thought in 1991 that somebody could use free software but build hardware encryption in to prevent you from running any other software on it? The working in the orginal draft of V3 was clear, but the revision really messed it up. The argument seems to be shifting focus to digital media, not actual hardware operations. the pro-RMS crowd seems to think that you couldn't use GPL'd software to enforce DRM.. that's not true. The Tivo case is an excellent example. They encrypted their linux so all the features aren't available with the GPL'd code from their site. RMS wants all the features you sold a product with GPL to be available. Of course if recordings are encrypted for DRM you don't have to be able to read those... but if your software makes recordings you have to be able to play them back. On the patent end, RMS wants companies using GPL'd code to offically release any patents related to the code. Again, with the Tivo... They may release code under GPL, but they turn around and hold silly patents on 1-click recording and other silly stuff... that's implemented in their GPL'd code. That puts any other project that looks at that code, not even uses it, at risk.. like the DishPVR recently sued.. The Linux code is out there, but TiVo can still selectively sue who they want to prevent YOU from using OSS code they modified and released because they have a "patent" on some piece of it... kinda not in the spirit of things?

Linus comes from the "company" camp. He sees how these new rules make things "harder" for companies and he's part of the crew that actually gets the Linux OS out there and working for the people that pay the bills. Linus just wants people to use Linux..GPL was a tool to keep linux open... not a philosophy. RMS would just as soon keep Free Software where it is now, than to let it continue and get hi-jacked.

The more I do this, the more I realize that the Free Software thing is about actively seeking freedom, not just expecting it. Free Software is about presuing Free use and study of software for the sake of doing it! It's not just hoping you can keep your "fair use" rights to rip cds and play console ROMs. When you realize that patents last for 20 years and copyright "forever" unless software is explicitly put into the publics' hands by likes of the FSF you would never get to learn about such things.. no hobby tweaking for you.. it would all be a DMCA crime!