4 ms·

If the Linux Kernel was licensed permissively, none of the phone manufacturers would've released the source code of their kernel trees. The GPL is the reason w

by MYEUHD 11mo ago

If the Linux Kernel was licensed permissively, none of the phone manufacturers would've released the source code of their kernel trees. The GPL is the reason we have Android custom Roms today.

berkes 11mo ago
That's entirely speculative. The speculation has merits and makes sense. But is speculative nontheless.
- pjmlp 11mo ago
  Easy see the upstream contributions from any commercial vendor that has integrated BSD into their UNIX flavours, or the alternatives that exist nowadays for embedded FOSS operating systems, none of them GPL.
  - kuschku 11mo ago
    I can get the source of the kernel, including all drivers, running on my android phone with a few clicks and build a custom ROM. Where can I get the source of the exact kernel running on iOS devices, including all drivers? How about the Playstation 4 or 5? Where can I get the source of their FreeBSD fork?
    - fabrice_d 11mo ago
      > I can get the source of the kernel, including all drivers, running on my android phone with a few clicks and build a custom ROM. No, most drivers are closed source and you can just extract binary blobs for them. They run as daemons that communicate through the binder ipc - Android basically turned the Linux kernel into a microkernel.
      - pjmlp 11mo ago
        Indeed, since Android 8 all drivers are in userspace and use Android IPC to talk to the Linux kernel. Traditional Linux drivers are considered legacy in Android. https://source.android.com/docs/core/architecture/hal https://source.android.com/docs/core/architecture/hal
        oneshtein 11mo ago
        Yep, my Pixel 5 with stock OS and Pixel 6 with Graphene are hacked via WiFi blobs, which are not updated and cannot be patched.
- guerrilla 11mo ago
  Not at all. We have a lot of experience with this with such licenses and other software. BSD as just one example. Not only do we have a pile of emperical evidence, it's also a priori obvious: they're not going to expend any effort or take any risk if its not neccessary. They can just benefit without paying.
- MYEUHD 11mo ago
  It's not speculation. In order to build a custom Rom, you need three things: the kernel tree, the device tree, and the binary blobs. The binary blobs can be extracted from a running phone. The kernel tree is GPL-licensed, so almost all phones have kernel trees releases, and if they don't you can ask the manufacturer for it. The device tree on the other hand, is created from scratch for each phone. As such, there is no pre-existing license, and therefore no legal obligation to release device tree sources, so almost no manufacturer does. The only notable exception is Google with their Nexus and Pixel phones. (But this has stopped since with the Android 16 release) We can safely assume that the manufacturers that don't release the device trees, wouldn't have released kernel trees if they weren't obliged to. To go into more details: The device trees are relatively easy to make. So, their absence doesn't represent a big hurdle. See for example https://xdaforums.com/t/guide-how-to-make-a-device-tree-for-your-phone.3698419/ https://xdaforums.com/t/guide-how-to-make-a-device-tree-for-... But adding support for a device to the Linux Kernel requires _huge_ reverse-engineering efforts. This is why there's still no fully functional Android build for iPhones.
  - Someone 11mo ago
    > In order to build a custom Rom, you need three things: the kernel tree, the device tree, and the binary blobs. And a license to use the binary blobs for that purpose. Is it a given that doing that is allowed?
    - qdotme 11mo ago
      IANAL; but - jurisdiction dependent. Some have "interoperability exceptions" - so if you have been granted a license to something, you can reuse it in different context (so for instance you could run Microsoft Office on WINE even if Microsoft's license forbids it). Some have restrictions on redistribution (but the builds just using the blobs from the old filesystem are fine). A lot of that is in the gray area, and for that very reason many builds don't actually redistribute blobs - they extract and reuse them live.
- samrus 11mo ago
  "If i stop eating, ill die" is also speculative. Do we have validate everything like we were born yesterday?
creshal 11mo ago
See also, FreeBSD: Plenty of commercial offerings around it, no source for most of them, because the license doesn't require it. For example, there's no source for the Playstation kernels/userlands released by Sony. They only upstream some bug fixes that would be too onerous to keep in their private fork.
- smallnix 11mo ago
  > They only upstream some bug fixes that would be too onerous to keep in their private fork. Are you arguing that more good things would go upstream if it were licensed non-permissive or are you giving an example were it works well enough?
  - dsr_ 11mo ago
    They're privatizing their profits and socializing their losses. It's not healthy.
kamranjon 11mo ago
This is probably the biggest and most successful example of utilizing non-permissive open source licensing for the public good - I’m curious why so many places I’ve worked have insisted on avoiding using libraries with GPL licenses in favor of MIT licensed projects, while at the same time hosting all of their services on different flavors of Linux. It definitely seems like MIT is favored by big corps but at the end of the day, they’ll use GPL licensed code if it’s the best option. Which makes me wonder why it’s so demonized.
- yupyupyups 11mo ago
  Compatibility with proprietary dependencies that the company cannot control. If I'm not mistaken, GPL requires the release of the dependencies' source code too if there are no other implementations around. I would be happy to hear from anyone who knows about this subject if what I'm saying is correct.
  - regularfry 11mo ago
    That's certainly the FSF's stance, but I don't know if it's been tested.
  - fweimer 11mo ago
    It depended on whether the programs were distributed together. So it wasn't okay to link against OpenSSL for GNU/Linux distributions (although interpretations varied). For a time, this was used to push GNUTLS as an alternative to OpenSSL. But it was generally agreed upon that it was okay to link against CryptoAPI on Windows because you would not distribute Windows code along with your GPL binaries.
- whatevaa 11mo ago
  Lawyers are cautious people, not accepting interpretations. Until courts say otherwise, GPL is too high of a risk to use as a library.
- Octoth0rpe 11mo ago
  > while at the same time hosting all of their services on different flavors of Linux. That linux uses GPL is entirely irrelevant to the vast majority of uses of it. What hosting services are customizing their kernels with proprietary code?

by MYEUHD 11mo ago

If the Linux Kernel was licensed permissively, none of the phone manufacturers would've released the source code of their kernel trees. The GPL is the reason we have Android custom Roms today.

berkes 11mo ago

That's entirely speculative. The speculation has merits and makes sense. But is speculative nontheless.

pjmlp 11mo ago
Easy see the upstream contributions from any commercial vendor that has integrated BSD into their UNIX flavours, or the alternatives that exist nowadays for embedded FOSS operating systems, none of them GPL.
- kuschku 11mo ago
  I can get the source of the kernel, including all drivers, running on my android phone with a few clicks and build a custom ROM. Where can I get the source of the exact kernel running on iOS devices, including all drivers? How about the Playstation 4 or 5? Where can I get the source of their FreeBSD fork?
  - fabrice_d 11mo ago
    > I can get the source of the kernel, including all drivers, running on my android phone with a few clicks and build a custom ROM. No, most drivers are closed source and you can just extract binary blobs for them. They run as daemons that communicate through the binder ipc - Android basically turned the Linux kernel into a microkernel.
    - pjmlp 11mo ago
      Indeed, since Android 8 all drivers are in userspace and use Android IPC to talk to the Linux kernel. Traditional Linux drivers are considered legacy in Android. https://source.android.com/docs/core/architecture/hal https://source.android.com/docs/core/architecture/hal
      - oneshtein 11mo ago
        Yep, my Pixel 5 with stock OS and Pixel 6 with Graphene are hacked via WiFi blobs, which are not updated and cannot be patched.
guerrilla 11mo ago
Not at all. We have a lot of experience with this with such licenses and other software. BSD as just one example. Not only do we have a pile of emperical evidence, it's also a priori obvious: they're not going to expend any effort or take any risk if its not neccessary. They can just benefit without paying.
MYEUHD 11mo ago
It's not speculation. In order to build a custom Rom, you need three things: the kernel tree, the device tree, and the binary blobs. The binary blobs can be extracted from a running phone. The kernel tree is GPL-licensed, so almost all phones have kernel trees releases, and if they don't you can ask the manufacturer for it. The device tree on the other hand, is created from scratch for each phone. As such, there is no pre-existing license, and therefore no legal obligation to release device tree sources, so almost no manufacturer does. The only notable exception is Google with their Nexus and Pixel phones. (But this has stopped since with the Android 16 release) We can safely assume that the manufacturers that don't release the device trees, wouldn't have released kernel trees if they weren't obliged to. To go into more details: The device trees are relatively easy to make. So, their absence doesn't represent a big hurdle. See for example https://xdaforums.com/t/guide-how-to-make-a-device-tree-for-your-phone.3698419/ https://xdaforums.com/t/guide-how-to-make-a-device-tree-for-... But adding support for a device to the Linux Kernel requires _huge_ reverse-engineering efforts. This is why there's still no fully functional Android build for iPhones.
- Someone 11mo ago
  > In order to build a custom Rom, you need three things: the kernel tree, the device tree, and the binary blobs. And a license to use the binary blobs for that purpose. Is it a given that doing that is allowed?
  - qdotme 11mo ago
    IANAL; but - jurisdiction dependent. Some have "interoperability exceptions" - so if you have been granted a license to something, you can reuse it in different context (so for instance you could run Microsoft Office on WINE even if Microsoft's license forbids it). Some have restrictions on redistribution (but the builds just using the blobs from the old filesystem are fine). A lot of that is in the gray area, and for that very reason many builds don't actually redistribute blobs - they extract and reuse them live.
samrus 11mo ago
"If i stop eating, ill die" is also speculative. Do we have validate everything like we were born yesterday?

creshal 11mo ago

See also, FreeBSD: Plenty of commercial offerings around it, no source for most of them, because the license doesn't require it. For example, there's no source for the Playstation kernels/userlands released by Sony. They only upstream some bug fixes that would be too onerous to keep in their private fork.

smallnix 11mo ago
> They only upstream some bug fixes that would be too onerous to keep in their private fork. Are you arguing that more good things would go upstream if it were licensed non-permissive or are you giving an example were it works well enough?
- dsr_ 11mo ago
  They're privatizing their profits and socializing their losses. It's not healthy.

kamranjon 11mo ago

This is probably the biggest and most successful example of utilizing non-permissive open source licensing for the public good - I’m curious why so many places I’ve worked have insisted on avoiding using libraries with GPL licenses in favor of MIT licensed projects, while at the same time hosting all of their services on different flavors of Linux. It definitely seems like MIT is favored by big corps but at the end of the day, they’ll use GPL licensed code if it’s the best option. Which makes me wonder why it’s so demonized.

yupyupyups 11mo ago
Compatibility with proprietary dependencies that the company cannot control. If I'm not mistaken, GPL requires the release of the dependencies' source code too if there are no other implementations around. I would be happy to hear from anyone who knows about this subject if what I'm saying is correct.
- regularfry 11mo ago
  That's certainly the FSF's stance, but I don't know if it's been tested.
- fweimer 11mo ago
  It depended on whether the programs were distributed together. So it wasn't okay to link against OpenSSL for GNU/Linux distributions (although interpretations varied). For a time, this was used to push GNUTLS as an alternative to OpenSSL. But it was generally agreed upon that it was okay to link against CryptoAPI on Windows because you would not distribute Windows code along with your GPL binaries.
whatevaa 11mo ago
Lawyers are cautious people, not accepting interpretations. Until courts say otherwise, GPL is too high of a risk to use as a library.
Octoth0rpe 11mo ago
> while at the same time hosting all of their services on different flavors of Linux. That linux uses GPL is entirely irrelevant to the vast majority of uses of it. What hosting services are customizing their kernels with proprietary code?