Seems that tactics and politics are more important then the original idea of freedom for software...
Well, I don't see it as negatively. This kind of reasoning (at least as you express it above) reminds me of the "BSD is better because you are free not to release source of your derivative work: you have more freedom than with a GPL package".
The idea has always been more in the lines of "do ut des": I give my software if you give me back yours (that uses mine, otherwise I have no say in your licensing policies). And it seems a fair game to me.
I trust RMS having thought about this for quite a while, before suggesting to go along this way.
Yes, I think so. And it works for me. My experience with libbarcode (my only GNU package, very small as well) is that a customer asked me if he could include the libraray in his proprietary program. While he can do that for internal use (and this links with the original question), if he publishes the result he can't, and a (GPL) wrapper is needed. The wrapper, in this case, is not a huge technical problem, but it gives advantage to free software programs over a proprietary ones. Proprietary programs must be kept separate from the library, and this is something that hopefully will reach a few of the end users. Some libraries are less wrappable, some are more. All in all, i think it's a fair game.
And this stuff leads directly to the issue of ASP (application service providers). I see this kind of "service" a threat to both free software (which can get proprietarized) and to people freedom.
Company P can use my free library inside their web server to deliver .png barcode images to the end user. The end user will never know that it's produced by a modified free package. Still worse, a company can filter user data very transparenltly (the user runs a client that sends data to be filtered to the company), and ask payment each time the service is used. Think for example of a "compiling service" for cpu-driven devices. What if the compiler is a modified GCC?
I think *this* is an issue. Hope the GPLv3 will address it, but I really can't think how it can (very-restrictive licenses are not unilateral: the user must agree to the license. Do you remember about http://www.freeworldlicence.org/ , (passed here in December).
And yes, the more I think about the original question, the more I'm convinced it can be done. Well, companies are already distributing binary stuff that the user must link with the Linux kernel (like the disk-on-chip driver: I used it, no thanks).
/alessandro