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Sometime this year and I guess it was July 2011 looking at the version available online Scrum Guide on scrum.org was changed. If the Scrum Guide is change, the framework is also changed. The list of changes is following:

• "The team of people performing the work of creating an Increment is the Development Team." So similar to XP (Extreme Programming) all the Team members are called developers.
• "Regardless of the work performed by individual team members, they are known as Developers." Same as above, but negating areas of expertise. This is not really helping to deliver quality products. You can imagine project managers saying that if in Scrum they are only Developers, then why bother with hiring experienced testers.
• "Development Teams do not commit to completing the work planned during a Sprint Planning Meeting." Another dodgy statement. You can imagine stakeholders going haywire when the Team says that according to the book they do not have to commit to anything. Same goes for immature teams not delivering and saying that's ok.
• "The Development Team creates a forecast of work it believes will be done, but that forecast will change as more becomes known throughout the Sprint." Nothing new. Estimation was always and educated guess and the Team planned as much and as accurately as possible.
• "Scrum does not mandate a burndown chart to monitor progress. Scrum requires only that:
  
  • Remaining work for a Sprint is summed and known on a daily basis.
  • Trending toward completing the work of the Sprint is maintained throughout the Sprint."

  Yeah, no. Seeing is believing and without burndown clearly visible to everybody, there will be lack of focus. I remember that Dilbert cartoon with "How is the project going?" "Fine." :).

• "Release Planning is a valuable thing to do when using Scrum, but isn’t required by Scrum itself." Again nothing new.
• "The Sprint Backlog is the Product Backlog items selected for the Sprint, plus a plan for delivering them." What? Sprint Backlog contains a plan? Should that be a User Story? :) "There is no longer a required concept of “Sprint Backlog items” although that technique can make a great plan. A self­-organizing Development Team always has a plan." Was that a technique before? :)
• "The Product Backlog is “ordered,” instead of “prioritized,” providing flexibility to the Product Owner to optimize value in his or her unique circumstances." O RLY? If you name a cow a dog, will that make a difference to the cow? What's the use of it?

There is a very interesting paragraph on page 3 of the document. "Scrum Overview Scrum (n): A framework within which people can address complex adaptive problems, while productively and creatively delivering products of the highest possible value. Scrum is:

• Lightweight
• Simple to understand
• Extremely difficult to master"

And thank you for that. Maybe now teams introducing Scrum will be more conscious about difficulty of the practices despite the fact of simplicity of the framework itself.

I am not quite sure where the framework is heading and what is the intended purpose of the changes, but I can tell you what is my opinion. Difficult framework in challenging environment became more loose, allowing for more push-backs, endless discussions about implementation and less arguments in hand to get support from the management. There will be more loose interpretation and more Scrum BUT.

Link to the Scrum Guides (all languages)
Link to the update description.