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Linus
... the GPLv2 in no way limits your use of the software. If you're a mad scientist, you can use GPLv2'd software for your evil plans to take over the world ("Sharks with lasers on their heads!!"), and the GPLv2 just says that you have to give source code back. And that's OK by me. I like sharks with lasers. I just want the mad scientists of the world to pay me back in kind. I made source code available to them, they have to make their changes to it available to me. After that, they can fry me with their shark-mounted lasers all they want.

From where I'm standing, [the GPLv3] says that you suddenly can't use the software in certain "evil ways" (where evil is defined by the FSF--it doesn't actually cover the James Bond kind of evil, but if you can see Richard Stallman as a less dashing James Bond, it would be that kind of evil).

Citation
Linus
A lot of commercial companies want to do some really bad things with DRM...There are actually valid uses of the exact-same technology, even if it ends up being called something different ("privacy rights," "security," what-not)...The actual technology is exactly the same technology that allows you to encrypt your "dear diary,"...At that point, it's not DRM anymore, it's privacy. See?

Citation
Linus
I'd rather vote with my personal choices (and my dollars) than by trying to make my software be a "weapon of mass opinion." And I just care a lot more about some things than I do about others (I would refuse to buy a computer that I can't replace the OS on, but a dishwasher or a DVR? Not a huge deal to me). Another way of saying the same thing: I don't want to make my software be "activist." I try to make it technically as good as possible and let that part speak for itself. I don't want it to make politics.