All I'm saying -- it depends on who's perspective you're relying on, and since when talking about TiVo you're mostly talking about the Linux kernel, I gave it as a shining example of a project who's main founder disagrees.
The part about Torvald ... he merely tolerates it
That said I completely agree that Motorola are assholes.
But you cannot change their behavior, unless you're going to do it by means of healthy competition -- simply because if Android were to impose stricter rules on locking, Motorola wouldn't have joined the party, and I'm pretty sure they are still skeptical about their choice ;-)
Imagine if Android somehow becomes the standard, just as Windows, but for mobile phones. And that you can run your apps on every phone, and thus have no vendor lock-in (like people have with iOS for example) -- the truth of the matter is that software is much more bigger than hardware, and mobile phones themselves will be a complementary to software (just as PCs currently are).
In this instance do you think Motorola will afford to lose market share to smaller, more open manufacturers that will be dying to grab a chunk of the market by any means necessary?
Which it the reason they probably are trying to do lock-in now, when the market is unprepared for it -- you're witnessing a land-grab. Apple does it too -- the more they shove on their customer's necks, the more they'll have in the future when competition will be stronger.
The important part of this story is that other manufacturers will be able to join the game, and unless something is yet to unfold, this is precisely what Google wants, as it is in their best interest. Not only that but they are putting pressure on it by releasing unjailed devices like Nexus S.
Have some faith in humanity dude :-) Software is a relatively new field versus all the others.
Also, Linus' opinion represents that of the majority of core kernel contributers. This can be checked, based on their mailing list, and based on the growing list of companies sponsoring its development.
I do not think they are ambiguous. GPL.v3 is perfectly within their goals and they have been consistent. Their message is also clear and I admire RMS for what he has done.My problem is with all the other people that suddenly discover the virtues of Free Software and consider it within their right to trash other people's work. Unfortunately being negative on the Internet is far too easy. Meritocracy doesn't work. The FSF has the right to bitch and moan about open-source versus free-software. Most other people do not.