However, some legal nitpickers might say that the line "you are free to change and redistribute it" establishes different licensing
You are right, it might happen, but I just can't get too excited about catering to such people. It would be a truly outrageous interpretation of a simple explanatory sentence. The "you are free to change and redistribute it" explains more about the free software idea than the previous texts did. Yep, which is why rms wants it in there :). Anyway, rms hasn't given the final nod yet. We'll update the coding standards when it's in. Thanks for the feedback, of course.