Any perceived nastiness might come from years of people earning lots of cash from using ffmpeg and giving nothing back.
In MediaCoder's case, the nastiness ensued because the author didn't distribute the source code with the ffmpeg binaries that he included with his software.
LGPL v3 even relaxes that particular clause at issue by adding:
"If distribution of object code is made by offering access to copy from a designated place, then offering equivalent access to copy the source code from the same place satisfies the requirement to distribute the source code, even though third parties are not compelled to copy the source along with the object code."
Meanwhile, the ffmpeg authors bull-headedly refused to mention to the MC developer what term he was violating, and other ffmpeg mailing list users were equally as puzzled as the MC developer.
I might add that the MC developer submitted patches with contributions to ffmpeg, all of which were refused without cause by the ffmpeg team.
This kind of treatment seems pretty tight-wad, wouldn't you say so?
Notice how ffmpeg devs keep bringing money on discussion.
Avoid GPL like a cancer I say.