I guess I can come completely clean with everything since it's all out in the open anyway...
First, nothing I did violated the license. Chad is spreading rumors that GPLv2 requires the kernel to be installable. Sorry, but it does not. Otherwise, every cell phone in the world is non-GPL compliant. The technique is called "Tivoization", and it refers to giving out the kernel source, but having a signature check which prevents you from replacing it. He can make up all the theories about GPL he wants, but his theories and the legal status are two different things entirely.
Second, why the drama over CDMA and not GSM? Because XDA correctly believes in the intent of open sourcing. That's why Chad isn't here anymore and that's why the CDMA builds aren't supported here. The CDMA variant has a signature lock against the entire boot image, which includes the kernel. Replacing the kernel prevents it from booting and prevents certain critical functionality from running. All of this is done in user-mode, with the exception of the storage of that signature. That's what the special builds of mkbootimg and unpackbootimg preserve... The signature. It's store in the header block of the boot image, and normal tools wipe this data out with zeroes.
The GSM variant isn't *supposed* to lock the kernel, that was a bug. And as soon as Anryl pointed out it wasn't working, I set upon fixing it. I have the fix built and verified. And yes, the symbols for the verification were left in the ROM, I didn't strip them out. My goal isn't to spend all my time on this stuff, it's to focus on the ROM features themselves. And I've offered to build *any* kernels that are public *with* a signature. I'll even take prebuilt kernels and create the bootsig for them, if they are GPL compliant. But yes, I'm willing to completely stop developing ROMs before I'll let someone steal work and credit while giving nothing back to the community.
If you look at my record, I've supported letting others use my binaries and blobs, I've submitted work to gerrit, and I try to do my best for everyone. But ultimately, I do this for me and the people who appreciate it. If your neither of those, then don't use it. Most of those crying foul are upset because they *want* the ROM, but if they can't have it using a kernel I refuse to support, then they want nobody else to have it either.
That's what's happened, what's happening, and why there's so much confusion. If I really wanted malware, I would have put it in TWRP last year... That supported a lot more devices.