The FSF couldn&#x27;t arbitrarily relicense his work or the work of any of the other contributors to the Linux kernel that they don&#x27;t hold the copyright to.<p>The GPLv3 had a long and comprehensive consultation phase. Linux contributors were involved in that.<p>And there&#x27;s more than just dislike preventing relicensing - it would require contacting all the current Linux copyright holders and getting their agreement (or removing their code if they decline).<p>On balance I&#x27;d rather Linux remained GPLv2 than relicensed to Apache 2, so this is a good example of the definition of a compromise. :-)