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Comment by sedachv | Hacker News Reader

It has been over a decade since Torvalds rejected GPLv3 licensing for Linux (https://lkml.org/lkml/2006/1/25/273) and it turns out that Stallman was right.

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Right about what? The Linux Kernel has gained tons of work back by vendors using it for products that would be replaced with functionally identical non-GPL3 components.

Torvalds' decision was extremely practical and has lead to huge gains for Linux users even if (ahem) not every company gives back.

Hence why Google is happily replacing every GPL component left in Android with MIT BSD ones in each Android release, GCC has already been shown the door.

In Fuchsia, they are even replacing Linux by their own micro-kernel, BSD licensed.

How much contributions has Sony given back to BSD from their PS4 BSD distribution?

They've made a handful of contributions back. Arguably, a lot of the changes they've made they couldn't share anyways (AMD licensing agreements) or were built on top of it as applications.

FWIW: I, for sure, appreciate the GPL3 and copy-left licenses.

> Right about what?

About companies using GPLv2 software in computers and devices and you being unable to change the software the computers run. In case you did not read the linked article, it is a very long story about someone trying to use Linux on a tablet that was shipped with Linux.

That email only involves Linus Torvalds and Chase Venters. I don't see anything about stallman and what he is supposed to be right about.

RMS is the author of the GPL, so the mere existance of a GPLv3 means that he wasn't happy with v2. It's also a basic assmption that RMS thinks projects using GNU licensing should use GPLv3 when applicable.

See for instance https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GNU_General_Public_License#Ver....

Sorry, I should have included more context: http://gplv3.fsf.org/rms-why.html/

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