Emacs and the GPL

Assuming that this does indeed refer (only) to the linked post (and not to some comment made later in that thread - which I did not read any further), I can't find corroborating evidence for your statement. To quote from that post:

"Anyway, even though the publication seems to me to be in bad taste and
ill-advised, I would not want to have mailing list or archives limited
to a closed circle."

So it's inaccurate to say that he said (or even implied) that "the issue should have been out-of-bounds."