[mikekchar]

Thanks. Yes, someone else posted a better link with the rationale. Essentially he wants the user experience for the average person to have auto-upgrade so that he can fix bugs, etc reliably. For those that have more tech experience and can judge whether or not they should upgrade, they can build their own very easily.

Since he signs it with his own key, nobody can force an auto-upgrade except him. So you either have to trust him for this version and all future versions, or not trust him and build your own. You can package and sign your own version, but apparently (I haven't actually seen the reported twitter comments) he doesn't want you to name them the same (which is clearly a reasonable trademark issue since any build not signed by him could contain anything).

I personally don't have a problem with that and it certainly isn't a GPL violation.