Underfunding or why I am not interested

[HRJet]

My very naive observation follows:

On Sun, Feb 23, 2014 at 3:59 PM, anatoly techtonik <techtonik at gmail.com>wrote:

> Vendors need to implement patches
> back into Linux kernel,
>

This sort of strings-attached freedom is in my opinion not going to really
matter. Vendors will just move their secret sauce to other places.

If Intel, nVidia or AMD contributes their patches to graphics drivers, it
is for their respective proprietary platforms. The secret sauce has been
moved inside proprietary hardware, the software is just glue.

If Google submits kernel patches from Android, well Android has its own
strings attached to Google's advertising and data collection platform.

If Apple (and previously Google) contributed back to Webkit, it is for
their respective platforms and / or services.
Further, if the counter-argument is that vendors didn't have any secret
sauce to benefit from when they contributed upstream, then the license
restrictions were anyway not needed. The vendors wouldn't have any
incentive to not contribute back to upstream (apart from laziness perhaps).
On the other hand they always have an incentive of publicity to contribute
back.

I guess my point in a nutshell is: restrictions in GPL/AGPL are futile
because businesses that didn't want to contribute back will find a way to
move their proprietary stuff elsewhere in the stack. And those that did
want to contribute back need not be restricted anyway.
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