The Samsung TV I got came with a pirated copy of linux, which is quite a feat (came with a copy of the GPL 3, which is a clear breach of the GPL 2 only license of linux).
About 3 years ago Samsung realised that they were having trouble understanding how to deal with free and open source software. They were actively recruiting people to help them improve on that area.
Source: I applied for the job. I didn't get it ;-)
Linux has a specific amendment to the GPLv2 stating that it must always be distributed under the terms of the GPLv2, not the GPLv3 or any later version.
Honest question, how is anyone expected to keep up with all of this? Software licenses are not all that interesting to me, I just like making things, but now I have to also read pages and pages of legalize for every single dependency. I thought it would be good enough to know most mainstream licenses, but apparently Linux has a modified version of the GPLv2? I would never notice that, nor would I trust myself to even comprehend it properly.
It's starting to feel like I need to consult a lawyer before I could ever publish an open source project, and that's never going to happen. I'd rather just stop publishing.
They are legally bound to contribute their modifications back to Linux (if they distribute them), it may be a different matter when they don't have to.
I can't say I know either way, however I do recall their Tizen SDK licensing not being accepted as open source due to it only granting the right to use certain components on 'Tizen Certified Platforms'.
No.. they are obliged to provide the source... not contribute them back. (Although the cost of maintaining patches internally, makes it cheaper to contribute them back)
I think a lot of hardware companies are still in the "smart" transition phase. In the sense that they've only been offering a product line with GUI driven software component for the past ~5 years.
Which means the larger companies* are probably on schedule for development to start slowing because of technical debt. And therefore solving that (modern development practices and open source involvement!) will become a competive advantage.
* Sadly, the smaller companies will probably always be hacked-together-MVP stacks on top of whatever release they started dev on