[arghwhat]

These are entirely different arguments.

One is that the users of *BSD's aren't donating to the development, despite enjoying its fruits. GPL will never help here.

The other is about not having to give your changes to the project itself back (bug fixes or features). GPL helps here. However, your examples do not apply to this bucket: Sony's fancy graphics driver can just be a closed-source out-of-tree driver, which would be perfectly compliant with GPL. This is why we have closed-source graphics drivers on Linux.

I personally love open source, and greatly dislike GPL. I prefer the Apache licenses (open but legally explicit), but am completely okay with BSD/MIT.

[xorcist]

> Sony's fancy graphics driver can just be a closed-source out-of-tree driver, which would be perfectly compliant with GPL.

This is a loophole with the GPL, not the way it is intended to be used. It is far from clear if this is even legal. The Linux developers are split on the issue, but no one seems to care enough to press charges.

[arghwhat]

It isn't a loophole of GPL, it's a feature of the project in question.

If having GPL-licensed code execute non-GPL binary components violates the license, then it would be a license violation to execute any binary that is not GPL-licensed on such an operating system running a GPL-licensed kernel. Such a limitation would be absurd.

From a high-level, project-agnostic perspective, there is no difference between a kernel module and an application binary—they are both external binary blobs with the intention to extend the functionality of the initial project (in this case the Linux kernel). The differences are low-level and kernel-specific (kernel- vs. user-mode, API availability, intended functionality). The GPL does not distinguish between a printer driver or a calculator application.

Another aspect would be the use of a GPL-licensed header file. However, coming to the conclusion that using an untouched header-file (which usually only contains an API surface) from a GPL-licensed project taint code to require GPL-license for compliance would have huge consequences. Many projects would be rendered in violation overnight. This would likely hurt GPL.

[jcelerier]

> This is why we have closed-source graphics drivers on Linux.

And yet, having Linux being GPL must have given incentive at some point to give code back since nowadays both Intel and AMD have very good GPL'ed drivers.

[arghwhat]

I would argue that you're drawing a false connection between being GPL and the benefits of open source code. GPL provides legal protections, but does not directly or indirectly incentivize writing open source code.

Having open source drivers grant Intel and AMD at least the following:

1. Free work on their drivers. Who wouldn't benefit from bug fixes and improvements to the graphics drivers of extremely popular graphics cards? In other words, it reduces cost.

2. Good marketing. There is only a very small group of people who are twisted enough to think that open source is a bad thing. There is a much larger group that see it as a positive thing (and then there's the group that doesn't care at all). In other words, it increases sales.

3. Greater ability to mold the Linux kernel to better accommodate their drivers and needs. Even though a company can send patches to the kernel that would help their closed-source drivers, if they only help closed-source drivers, they are very unlikely to be accepted. On the other hand, any sane change that would help an in-tree driver would be accepted without question. In other words, it increases flexibility.

None of this relates to GPL (the drivers are probably only GPL because GPL forces the in-tree drivers to be GPL), and the same logic applies to *BSD's. The reason we don't have good graphics drivers on BSD is likely because it takes a lot of effort to write one. If it isn't going to affect revenue, Intel and AMD are unlikely to care.

[int_19h]

I find it far more likely that Linux has better drivers made by companies because it has much better marketshare, not because it's GPL.

[boomboomsubban]

Both of which will soon be available on FreeBSD. Yay free software!

By the way, amdgpu does not appear to be GPL, just GPL compatible. https://github.com/wkennington/linux-firmware/blob/master/LI...