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by pabs3 1971 days ago
They can backport the patch for the security fix themselves and rebuild the old version, or band together with other users to do the same.
1 comments

that would be a full GPL compliant product, which is not what the comment was talking about.

Someone said companies use GPL software, add their business logic or drivers, and never contribute back: e.g. android phones.

Then someone else said the insane thing that the user benefits.

I pointed out that if there is a security flaw, you CANNOT build/path because you do not have all the source (e.g. alternative android OS cannot use the camera or radio for lack of kernel drivers)

Your post above doesn't mention GPL compliance, only vendors using ancient versions of open source code. If you don't have the source, of course you can't do anything. So you ask the vendor for source and if they refuse then you contact the Linux kernel community to enforce GPL compliance. At some point the source will come out, even if the vendor has to get sued in order to do it.

https://sfconservancy.org/copyleft-compliance/