"Followup to response: If my comments reflect a misconception, can you please provide an alternate hypothesis for why Google chose the Apache license for Androi

"Followup to response: If my comments reflect a misconception, can you please provide an alternate hypothesis for why Google chose the Apache license for Android" Of course - you're entirely right that's why Google chose the Apache license for Android. In fact, people from Google have said that and my article says that as well. That still only applies above kernel level. The GPL violations I am talking about, as described in the article, are failure to comply with GPL for the Linux kernel and for other GPL licensed components that vendors have chosen to include (I identified busybox in at least two of the listed firmwares.) You are probably right that many modifications are not covered by GPL. However, the vendor still has to comply for the portions that _are_ covered by GPL (even if they made no changes.) In the case of many of these systems, that happens to include the BSP (Board Support Package) that allows Linux to boot on those systems at all. Although that last part isn't the point, at the moment it's a fundamental practical problem.