I didn't get into it, but I do think that the user/developer distinction plays a part here. That is, one way to think about the Free Software/Open Source divide is that copyleft ensures freedoms for users at the expense of restricting developers, and permissive licenses ensure freedoms for developers at the expense of restricting users. As developers gained some power, we directed it towards helping ourselves.
I don't think that's the whole story, exactly, but I think it's an interesting way to think about it.
Traditionally the FSF advocate will say something here about end users hiring developers to modify software for them, but in reality that’s economically ridiculous.
Why is it ridiculous?
Sure, for the far right of the bell curve, the “end users” who are owners of medium-sized businesses, it becomes viable. But I’m talking about the end users who buy Microsoft Office Home Edition.
Non-developers take advantage of it by hiring a developer; it's essentially the right to take your software to be serviced by someone other than the seller.
> Traditionally the FSF advocate will say something here about end users hiring developers to modify software for them, but in reality that’s economically ridiculous.
It's perhaps ridiculous for non-wealthy individual end-users for software that isn't integral to a profit-making business, but it's quite common for major open source projects to see most of their contributions being from institutional end-users who have hired developers to address their own needs with the software.
I think there are two errors there: one is conflating the Free Software / Open Source divide (which is less about licenses and more about consequentialist vs. deontological justification for desire for licenses with particular features) with the copyleft/permissive divide, and the other is conflating direct licensees with “developers” and indirect downstream licensees with “users”. (It's true that the GPLv3 contains specific protection for certain users qua users via the anti-TiVoization provisions, but that's not true of copyleft licenses generally.)
The basic premise is relatively simple - with no insight in something very complex, you're at the mercy of the creators of that complexity.
Doesn't that sounds nice, as a developer? It's a power struggle, really.
Regarding certification: I think you have this situation backwards. Developers will easily see through and gravitate to the project that's more friendly and open. The very examples you mention - people see through that and the companies end up getting negative PR in developer circles, despite releasing the code.
Those who have a problem in this game is again the users - they don't understand what's going on, but they might have lost a great deal of the power that the open source was supposed to give back to them, it's locked in behind the wall that the code is thrown over.