When Brown couldn't get proof, even after the most tortured, leading questions from people he thought would be hostile to Linus he twisted their words to try to support his theft case.

When they (Tanenbaub, Stallman & Ritchie) came out and cried 'FOUL!!!' Brown retreated to his current stance.

What is the current stance, really? While the theft angle is almost gone, (it's still lurking in there in the weaselly wording) in a nutshell it's something like

"without having been educated in how OSes work Linus would never have written Linux."

Or

"Without knowledge Linus could never have written Linux".

Well, DUHHH... Ritchie had Knowledge too, of the state of the art at his time. Tanenbaum had knowledge too, about the state of the art at his time.

Brown's current stance has disintegrated, moving away from direct accusations of theft to "if some projects take a long time then all projects must, and those projects that don't take a long time have cheated in some way."