I don't really want to get in the middle of a heated discussion but there seems to be some misunderstanding of the GPL.
And by those grounds, you should be pissed off at the ZSNES developers too for having a private subversion suppository, and so they will only release code at release intervals OR at milestone builds.
There is no problem with a private svn repository. The prime requirement of the GPL is that whenever someone distributes a binary version of the GPL'd software, he/she must also either distribute the source code or include an offer for a user to receive the source code for free or for a small fee. That's it.
So, if they are not distributing binaries based on the code in their SVN repository, then there's no problem with having a closed repo and not distributing the source.
In defense of Gonetz, I feel that he will release the source. He did in previous occasions, so whats stopping him now? Egos? I honestly think there is a legitimate reason and he will release the code when it is clean enough. Just like AamirM and his cycle accurate Megadrive emulator.
It's not a choice. If he is distributing binaries but not source of GPL'd code, and not including an offer to get the source which was used to build those binaries, then he is infringing on the copyrights of the other developers and is breaking the license by distributing those binaries.
It's not a matter of cleaning up the code. If the code is dirty then why is he distributing binaries based on that code anyway? You are not in compliance with the license if you distribute some binaries and then later distribute source code which was not the code used to build those binaries.
You will notice that I am careful to always release source packages of Mupen64Plus along with the binary packages. This is because I understand the requirements of the license and want to abide by it honestly.
That said, I despise the GPL in any shape or form. I rather have code in BSD, public domain, or being proprietary. I just can't stand how the FSF is pushing things with it.
This is a somewhat non-intuitive point of view for a software engineer to take. The free software movement is really (like many things in life) about power and control. The GPL gives power to the developers and takes power away from the business people. For a programmer to say that he doesn't like the license which gives him power is a curious statement.
If we didn't have the GPL there would be no Linux, no GCC, no Apache, no Firefox or Thunderbird, no Eclipse, no Python, no Gnome, KDE, Qt, WxWidgets, no GIMP, no OpenOffice, no Mupen64Plus. Without the GPL the entire world of software would be just as fucked up and balkanized as the Microsoft ecosystem. We'd all be subject to the whims of industry executives whose duties lie in providing profit for shareholders and business partners, and not satisfying customers. We'd all be breaking the law and massively pirating because we'd have no other reasonable choice, just like the music industry is stuck in a business model which has given music lovers no other choice.
It's only because of the GPL that I can sit on top of a mammoth software stack which took hundreds of millions of $$ worth of economic effort to develop, and I can analyze, understand, and control every single component involved without exception, to make it work for me exactly the way that I want it to. What's not to like about that?
In the end the GPL will also provide much more business value than would have been realized if the same software had been developed under proprietary licenses. It's leveling the playing field and giving everyone in the industry a common platform upon which to freely innovate and push computing to the next level. Many companies have caught on to this -- it's only the ones who have massive vested interests in the old systems which are trying to hold everyone else back.