Each version is given a distinguishing version number. If the Program specifies a version number of this License which applies to it and “any later version”, you have the option of following the terms and conditions either of that version or of any later version published by the Free Software Foundation. If the Program does not specify a version number of this License, you may choose any version ever published by the Free Software Foundation.

The effect of this provision is to make the default for copyright holders (those who did not specifically mark their works “GPL version 2 only”) a sharing of the right to change the license on their code with all their downstream users. If a new version of the license is published by the Free Software Foundation, anyone who receives a copy of the program labeled “GPL” or “GPLv2 or later” can redistribute the code, in modified or unmodified form, under GPLv3. Over time, even if the copyright holder does not act at all, the license of all existing copies of the work and all derivative works will change.

Power in anarchist communities is created by consent and lapses with its withdrawal. By using GPLv2, and by allowing the section 9 defaults to govern, software development communities and their members around the world gave, for fifteen years, discretion to Stallman and the board of the Free Software Foundation to modify their constitutions and their terms of trade. This was not inadvertent; the operation of section 9 of the license was fully understood. A few leaders of development communities—most notably Linus Torvalds of the Linux kernel project—specifically refused to delegate this power to the Free Software Foundation, and marked their code “GPLv2 only.” But for tens of thousands of projects, hundreds of them commercially very significant, decisions by FSF on the content of GPLv3 would immediately and directly affect those communities’ members, including the companies whose employees participated, and those who used and distributed the resulting code, which included parties who had invested $billions.

Some of those who had entrusted Stallman and the FSF with this power had done so because they were part of the movement and shared its goals. They were trusting political leadership they had voluntarily chosen. The companies had agreed to use GPLv2, including with the discretion it gave to FSF, for another reason. As one IBM lawyer—of my generation in the company, and with relevant responsibility in the late 90s—put it to me in a conversation in early 1999,

I’ve never understood why people found it hard to deal with Stallman, compared to say [he named an important but not dominant IT industry firm]. Because I know what his principles are, I always know exactly what he’ll do in any situation, because he will do what his principles require. Whereas, with [the competing firm], I can never be sure what their policy will be next month, as they are blown around by the behavior of stronger players in the market.