Yup: so long as the manufacturers in question have access to kernel sources, there's no GPL violation here. The Android code is not under the GPL and lies on th

Yup: so long as the manufacturers in question have access to kernel sources, there's no GPL violation here. The Android code is not under the GPL and lies on the user-space side of the kernel interfaces, and so can take advantage of the explicit exemption from the GPL those interfaces enjoy. The trouble is, some Android manufacturers do have a record of not giving access to kernel sources, as Matthew Garrett has documented: those manufacturers really are setting themselves up for trouble down the line if any kernel developer decides to make an example of them.