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You're talking about a completely different thing here though than the article is about, and obviously we can only speculate. Linus' opinion always was: "I giv

You're talking about a completely different thing here though than the article is about, and obviously we can only speculate. Linus' opinion always was: "I give you source code, you give me your changes back, we're even."[1] That's his summary of GPLv2 and I think such an attitude is reasonable, and it might have certainly aided the Linux kernel development over time (almost sure of it). He disliked the GPLv3 exactly because of that. Because in his opinion it's (paraphrased) "I give you the source code, and now I dictate to you how you are allowed to use it." (see same link). Whether a BSD/MIT license hurts or helps a project is pure speculation. More permissive licenses might make code reuse more attractive, and be considered "more free" regarding code reuse. As to what code contributions you miss out on? Hard to judge. There definitely are companies building products utilizing FreeBSD / OpenBSD without committing all their changes back (or none to begin with). Pick the right license for your project. You don't care and are happy if someone uses it? Use a permissive license (MIT/ISC). You want to develop the product, improve on it, and want the changes back? Use something like GPLv2. You deeply care about your code running on open devices? Use GPLv3. There's no "one obvious right way" as far as I am concerned. [1] https://youtu.be/5PmHRSeA2c8?t=2840 https://youtu.be/5PmHRSeA2c8?t=2840 (from there to 56:51 it's about open source licenses)

pjmlp 5y ago
One example are the some of the stuff BSDs and clang miss out from Apple, Sony and Nintendo, as they don't upstream everything.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- kryptiskt 5y ago
  GPL doesn't require upstreaming, only that it's available. Lots of hardware companies don't want their code in the mainline kernel and make no effort to make it fit in. There are huge masses of Linux kernel code out there that can't be upstreamed because the kernel developers wouldn't touch it with a ten-foot pole.
  - nix23 5y ago
    >GPL doesn't require upstreaming, only that it's available. That's not correct, you just have to make it available IF you redistribute the code. That's why you will never see a Google Data-center Linux-Kernel.
    - bombcar 5y ago
      The poster is making the distinction between working to merge your changes upstream and just dumping your changes on an unsuspecting world. The latter occurs decently often in the Linux Kernel world, and if there isn't much desire for the changes they can technically exist but never get merged. Whereas there are other drivers where the only one that cares about them is the company that uses them, but their developers have worked to get it actually upstreamed and help maintain it.
  - heavyset_go 5y ago
    > GPL doesn't require upstreaming, only that it's available. While the GPL doesn't require upstreaming, it does require that derivative works that are distributed to users must make sources available. If those sources are available, then users or project maintainers can choose to upstream those changes if they want to. Apple, Sony, Nintendo etc don't make those source changes available despite distributing derivative works to users, so users and project maintainers can't upstream changes even if they wanted to.
- nix23 5y ago
  Clang/LLVM was created by apple, and Netflix upstream's to FreeBSD...but google and microsoft to linux? And no don't tell me Microsoft works on linux, they try to integrate it into the windows "ecosystem".
  - virtue3 5y ago
    Your viewpoint of microsoft and linux is about 10+ years out of date: https://www.techrepublic.com/article/what-is-microsoft-doing-with-linux-everything-you-need-to-know-about-its-plans-for-open-source/ https://www.techrepublic.com/article/what-is-microsoft-doing...
    - nix23 5y ago
      Is it? Tell me what microsoft did for the linux kernel and not for HyperV and DirectX? Oh yeah and SUSE and SCO is another story..like written in you article...
      - virtue3 5y ago
        I don't see them being any different than the other companies that support linux and work on features for it. https://www.zdnet.com/article/linus-torvalds-isnt-worried-about-microsoft-taking-over-linux/ https://www.zdnet.com/article/linus-torvalds-isnt-worried-ab...
  - pjmlp 5y ago
    It was created, but now it is good enough for their Objective-C/Swift/MSL purposes, to the point everyone's wondering why clang is so behind in C++20 support.
    - fooker 5y ago
      >everyone's wondering why clang is so behind in C++20 support This is wrong. https://en.cppreference.com/w/cpp/compiler_support https://en.cppreference.com/w/cpp/compiler_support

pjmlp 5y ago

One example are the some of the stuff BSDs and clang miss out from Apple, Sony and Nintendo, as they don't upstream everything.

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
kryptiskt 5y ago
GPL doesn't require upstreaming, only that it's available. Lots of hardware companies don't want their code in the mainline kernel and make no effort to make it fit in. There are huge masses of Linux kernel code out there that can't be upstreamed because the kernel developers wouldn't touch it with a ten-foot pole.
- nix23 5y ago
  >GPL doesn't require upstreaming, only that it's available. That's not correct, you just have to make it available IF you redistribute the code. That's why you will never see a Google Data-center Linux-Kernel.
  - bombcar 5y ago
    The poster is making the distinction between working to merge your changes upstream and just dumping your changes on an unsuspecting world. The latter occurs decently often in the Linux Kernel world, and if there isn't much desire for the changes they can technically exist but never get merged. Whereas there are other drivers where the only one that cares about them is the company that uses them, but their developers have worked to get it actually upstreamed and help maintain it.
- heavyset_go 5y ago
  > GPL doesn't require upstreaming, only that it's available. While the GPL doesn't require upstreaming, it does require that derivative works that are distributed to users must make sources available. If those sources are available, then users or project maintainers can choose to upstream those changes if they want to. Apple, Sony, Nintendo etc don't make those source changes available despite distributing derivative works to users, so users and project maintainers can't upstream changes even if they wanted to.
nix23 5y ago
Clang/LLVM was created by apple, and Netflix upstream's to FreeBSD...but google and microsoft to linux? And no don't tell me Microsoft works on linux, they try to integrate it into the windows "ecosystem".
- virtue3 5y ago
  Your viewpoint of microsoft and linux is about 10+ years out of date: https://www.techrepublic.com/article/what-is-microsoft-doing-with-linux-everything-you-need-to-know-about-its-plans-for-open-source/ https://www.techrepublic.com/article/what-is-microsoft-doing...
  - nix23 5y ago
    Is it? Tell me what microsoft did for the linux kernel and not for HyperV and DirectX? Oh yeah and SUSE and SCO is another story..like written in you article...
    - virtue3 5y ago
      I don't see them being any different than the other companies that support linux and work on features for it. https://www.zdnet.com/article/linus-torvalds-isnt-worried-about-microsoft-taking-over-linux/ https://www.zdnet.com/article/linus-torvalds-isnt-worried-ab...
- pjmlp 5y ago
  It was created, but now it is good enough for their Objective-C/Swift/MSL purposes, to the point everyone's wondering why clang is so behind in C++20 support.
  - fooker 5y ago
    >everyone's wondering why clang is so behind in C++20 support This is wrong. https://en.cppreference.com/w/cpp/compiler_support https://en.cppreference.com/w/cpp/compiler_support