I don't think you are considering the changes in the behavior of software providers at the time.
Before that time, if when you bought something, it was generally assumed that you would be given documentation for how it worked, and how to repair it. TV sets had schematics pasted in them. Computers came with at least the listing of its source code, and documentation about maintaining it and modifying it. I worked with minicomputers, and recall regularly looking at source code to figure out how to do things. Companies relied on there patents and copyrights to protect their business, not by hiding information. There were some exceptions, but that was generally felt as bad behavior.
The change came in the late 70's as companies began to withdrawing such information. RMS talks about frustration with the lack of documentation for a printer he was using. This seem to be part a movement toward the use of terms "entrepreneurs" and "interlectual property", and the separation of information about how products worked (at any price) from buying the products themselves.
I don't think RMS would have taken the action he did if the status quo was not being changed around him.
You make it seem that he was the radical in the situation. Copyleft was a means to enforce what had been effectively the status quo against a radical change in the behavior of seller.
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@barryfm, perhaps what you say is true. However, over time, views like these became radical, even if they weren't to the start, because the next generation was comfortable with proprietary and locked down devices.
Bradley M. Kuhn at 2014-01-14T14:36:38Z
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It was radical that a license was written from the point of view of the consumer rather than the seller, which did shift whose interest was being preserved.
I agree that what is considered radical is in the context of the norms of the time. I am still overwhelmed by how far the norms have shifted, and how few people are involved in setting them. I don't think that any consumer is "comfortable" with the present situation. They just accept it as the norm.