[onphonenow]

Yes, they could if they care too. Folks have done this with (relatively) small contributions.

Most companies are willing to share their code as GPL requires when asked.

What they aren't willing to do is provide authorization keys etc to hardware etc as they don't feel GPLv2 requires that. Because most GPLv2 devs ALSO don't think GPLv2 requires that not a lot of litigation there.

My guess is that if SFC does get a smaller kernel contributor to assign copyright the kernel devs may try and remove their contribution.