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With the non-enforcement of the license (see vmware, various chinese companies), Linux kernel is de facto MIT, yes.

My experience as an embedded software programmer is quite the opposite. We do care about releasing our Linux modifications under GPLv2, and we do contribute to community when it makes sense.

> see vmware

from https://lwn.net/Articles/696936/: "The court ruled that he had not provided enough specificity about the code he was claiming had been used by the company. The merits of the GPL and whether the two main parts of VMware's product constitute a derived work of the kernel were not even considered."

That doesn't seem to prove anything.

> various chinese companies

HiSilicon (https://github.com/hisilicon/linux-hisi) releases its fork.

And then as a counter-example, Boox frequently (always?) refuses to release kernel sources because... basically "we don't feel like it and nobody's ever going to be able to force us anyway" reasons, last I read. The latest development I heard in this space was that folks were trying to sic some YouTuber on them who has connections in China (I believe lives there, too) to try and guilt them into abiding by the copyright law they agreed to by using Linux.

It's... not a good time.

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