GPLv2 affirmation…

I don’t generally post here as people have probably noticed, but here’s a pdf of a recent court ruling, and this turns out to be the easiest way for me to link to a copy of it, since I don’t really maintain any web presence normally and I don’t want to post pdf’s to the kernel mailing lists or anything like that.

And the reason I want to post about it, is that it basically validates my long-held views that the GPLv2 is about making source code available, not controlling the access to the hardware that it runs on.

The court case itself is a mess of two bad parties: Vizio and the SFC. Both of them look horribly bad in court - for different reasons.

Vizio used Linux in their TVs without originally making the source code available, and that was obviously not ok.

And the Software Freedom Conservancy then tries to make the argument that the license forces you to make your installation keys etc available, even though that is not the case, and the reason why the kernel is very much GPLv2 only. The people involved know that very well, but have argued otherwise in court.

End result: both parties have acted badly. But at least Vizio did fix their behavior, even if it apparently took this lawsuit to do so. I can’t say the same about the SFC.

Please, SFC - stop using the kernel for your bogus legal arguments where you try to expand the GPLv2 to be something it isn’t. You just look like a bunch of incompetent a**holes.

The only party that looks competent here is the judge, which in this ruling says

Plaintiff contends the phrases, “machine-readable” and “scripts used to control compilation and installation” support their assertion in response to special interrogatory no. 4 that Defendant should “deliver files such that a person of ordinary skill can compile the source code into a functional executable and install it onto the same device, such that all features of the original program are retained, without undue difficulty.”

The language of the Agreements is unambiguous. It does not impose the duty which is the subject of this motion.

Read as a whole, the Agreements require Vizio to make the source code available in such a manner that the source code can be readily obtained and modified by Plaintiff or other third parties. While source code is defined to include “the scripts used to control compilation and installation,” this does not mean that Vizio must allow users to reinstall the software, modified or otherwise, back onto its smart TVs in a manner that preserves all features of the original program and/or ensures the smart TVs continue to function properly. Rather, in the context of the Agreements, the disputed language means that Vizio must provide the source code in a manner that allows the source code to be obtained and revised by Plaintiff or others for use in other applications.

In other words, Vizio must ensure the ability of users to copy, change/modify, and distribute the source code, including using the code in other free programs consistent with the Preamble and Terms and Conditions of the Agreements. However, nothing in the language of the Agreements requires Vizio to allow modified source code to be reinstalled on its devices while ensuring the devices remain operable after the source code is modified. If this was the intent of the Agreements, the Agreements could have been readily modified to state that users must be permitted to modify and reinstall modified software on products which use the program while ensuring the products continue to function. The absence of such language is dispositive and there is no basis to find that such a term was implied here. Therefore, the motion is granted.

IOW, this makes it clear that yes, you have to make source code available, but no, the GPLv2 does not in any way force you to then open up your hardware.

My intention - and the GPLv2 - is clear: the kernel copyright licence covers the software, and does not extend to the hardware it runs on. The same way the kernel copyright license does not extend to user space programs that run on it.

@torvalds thanks for sharing Linus, I appreciate your thoughts on the subject

@torvalds a torvalds post :O 🔥

@torvalds Love you Linus.

https://www.wordreference.com/iten/vizio

@torvalds
Always good to hear from you, Linus.

Though I have to say:

I was hoping for a Christmas greeting — not a reminder that some people still don’t understand GPLv2 in 2025.

TL;DR (IMHO):

The GPLv2 is about making source code available.

It is not about forcing vendors to open their hardware or provide installation keys.

You must be able to:

- copy
- modify
- redistribute the code

including using it elsewhere.

You are not entitled to reinstall modified software on the original device and expect it to keep working.

Open source software is not a backdoor mandate for open hardware.

If that had been the intent, the license would have said so.

It didn’t.

@torvalds Doesn't this mean that you don't get to exercise freedom 1: "The freedom to study how the program works, and change it so it does your computing as you wish (freedom 1)."? If you only can read the software but have no means of putting any changes into practice, then it doesn't seem unreasonable to complain about it from a software freedom perspective. Or am I missing something in the discussion?

@torvalds well, there goes my intent to ally with them — valuable information to share, thanks

@pkal @torvalds The intent of the license must be developed into specific, enforceable terms and conditions. The GPLv2 has none of that, so there’s nothing to enforce. Simple as.

@torvalds which is all well and understood, but also makes it useless because there being no way to reinstall the compiled thing from the sources by ourselves there's no way to guarantee or confirm that the sources delivered are actually the ones being run in the hardware.

@pkal @torvalds From what I understand, Linus’ stance is that software freedom does not get to override what the hardware manufacturer wants their hardware to do. Since you have access to the software as granted by GPLv2, you can make your own hardware to run that software on.
I’m not yet sure how I feel about it, but it is consistent with Linus’ stated opinions.

@torvalds The PDF doesn't open properly (for me at least), alternative link: https://sfconservancy.org/static/docs/2025-12-04-sleal-tentative-rulings.pdf

(scroll down to "2021-01226723 Software Freedom Conservancy, Inc. vs. Vizio, Inc.)

Thanks for all your work, Mr. Torvalds.

@xerz @torvalds I agree, which to people like me is exactly the shortcoming of the license, but that wasn't my point: I was hoping to hear what Linus' position is on freedom 1 in general.

@torvalds i wish the distribution of linux kernel source code was adequately enforced, but seems like sfc is the only one doing that (even tho they are incorrectly expanding the gplv2 definition)

https://consumerrights.wiki/w/Entities_refusing_to_distribute_copyleft_licensed_software_under_license_terms#Linux_kernel

https://www.reddit.com/r/linux/comments/1puojsr/the_device_that_controls_my_insulin_pump_uses_the/

edit: linus might be mistaken here: https://mastodon.ml/@lyyn/115777554332881107

@torvalds @woody

“IOW, this makes it clear that yes, you have to make source code available, but no, the GPLv2 does not in any way force you to then open up your hardware.”

Exactly. If the GPLv2 requires that, then you can’t use GPLv2 code on (true) ROM. ROM, in the old school sense is undefinable. That’s its purpose. Whether anyone likes it, there are cases where ROM makes sense. If the hardware has to be modifiable, read-only hardware is banned under that license.

@pkal @torvalds Reality is, there is aproximately 1000 ways to legally ignore the license (not only GPL btw), either by not actually sharing the source code or limitting what people can do with it.

On the topic, Linux kernel is a corporate project, so it's obvious which side (actual people vs corpos) kernel folks would choose. Of course, not like adopting GPLv3 would change anything. In fact it would probably make matters worse.

@torvalds I didn't know you used social media at all to be honest. Good information though, thank you for sharing

@torvalds The "continue to function properly" language came from Vizio, though. That's not a claim SFC ever made. That wouldn't even be covered by GPLv3. 🤷
https://sfconservancy.org/news/2025/dec/24/vizio-msa-irrelevant-ruling/

@pkal @torvalds You do have the freedom to modify it and use the modified version. But you are not entitled to run the modified version on the device that the original version came on. You are free to run it on any other device.

@kees @torvalds Yeah, I don't think I've ever seen SFC make the claim that it forces hardware to be opened up. To the contrary, they've argued that people have fundamentally misunderstood what TiVo did and it resulted in the messy GNU v3 license stuff we have today.

@kbruen @torvalds @pkal Programable hardware does what the software tells it to do.

As far as I know, the GPLv2 has loopholes that hardware vendors are exploiting, leaving users with useless code and proprietary software doing nasty things with their devices and the data obtained by interacting with those devices.

Linux has code dependent and independent of the hardware. The dependent code is non-portable and modifications are useless unless you can compile a binary with these modifications and load it in the same device model.

@torvalds well, it was worth a shot ¯⁠\⁠_⁠(⁠ツ⁠)⁠_⁠/⁠¯

@neal @kees @torvalds You mean this, right?
https://sfconservancy.org/blog/2021/jul/23/tivoization-and-the-gpl-right-to-install/
Just linking here because it's relevant

@torvalds I agree with your analysis. And I agree with your reasoning when it comes to using GPLv2 as the basis for the kernel license. The SFC wants to be able to do something more than what you intended, but whether what they want is a good idea or not is a separate argument from what the license you chose allows. And I utterly hate lawyers trying to argue that "X implies !X" by increments. That way lies "proving" that the square root of 2 is 2.

@torvalds I've always believed in copyleft over copyright. That said, there are big messes on either side.

FYI Torvalds, I don't trust Vizio for many reasons. Add this to be another reason not to buy their products.

@torvalds FSF wrote the GPL and we don't agree with your interpretation here. And from what I've read, Vizio distributed GNU Bash and GNU GlibC in their TV and this involves LGPL as well. I don't take your post seriously and wouldn't normally reply but you have a megaphone which might distract people.

@iank

Perhaps you should explain why you do not agree.

@torvalds

@lyyn @kees @torvalds Yup, that's the one.

@pkal @torvalds i have to disagree with this perspective.

If the software can run well, sometimes, or not at all, is not the legal responsibility of hardware manufacturers. If that were the case we could sue, say, Nintendo, for not enabling, or facilitating the use of modern Ubuntu from running on the Nintendo 64.

A lot of companies abuse on this logical implication maliciously, but it would make free software downright unappealing for any legal institution to use.

@tragivictoria @pkal @torvalds i do agree Linux is super corporate, but there is nothing unreasonable about the GPL2 and defending what it is and what is not, even if it helps corporations

@torvalds happy holidays! One floss.social post won't have space to discuss all the inaccuracies in your post.

This lawsuit isn't primarily about Linux, which is just 1 of 26 copyleft projects on the TVs; there's both GPLv2 & LGPLv2.1 binaries; Vizio's sources remain non-compliant on various issues. I think maybe you didn't read what we've actually said?

Lots of Linux developers care about this and have different views, so maybe take some time to talk to them or me about it? Could be fun!

@torvalds how can you verify they gave you all the license does say you need from the software they used under the GPLv2 (eg. 3a: "complete corresponding machine-readable source code" or 3b: "complete machine-readable copy of the corresponding source code")

Some may say they could provide something "functional" but different than what they are running on their hardware...

we just have "trust" them but can't verify.

@neil hey Neil, im just curious, but is it possible to do something about this? im not sure what legal stuff can be done to stop companies from withholding gpl licensed software, so im curious to hear ur thoughts

happy to talk about this privately, but wanted to mention u here to see what u thought about this

thanks!

@torvalds

I understand and agree with your point on the GPLv2. Certainly I agree that companies should be able to profit.

That said, how much revenue do manufacturers really risk by allowing bootloader unlocks? Most modern Android phones support official unlocking, yet only a tiny fraction of users (enthusiasts) ever do it, the vast majority never touch it.

Tivoization feels like a separate issue best addressed through legislation (e.g., right-to-repair laws) rather than license changes.

@torvalds Also merry christmas and a happy new year

@Logical_Error

There have been a few (but not many) enforcement cases, and Harald Welte ran the gpl-violations.org project for years.

A fair amount of work to enforce FOSS licensing goes on behind the scenes, but litigation is still rare. Litigation can be expensive, slow etc.

@torvalds

“County of Orange”?? 🤭

@torvalds thanks.

@torvalds Thank you. Even if you just post seldomly, it's very much appreciated when you do.

@torvalds A shame really. Users should have the right to modify the software running on their devices.

@pkal this „freedom 1“ can also be interpreted as a „right to repair“ which not only covers freedom but also sustainability. I think GPLv2 comes from an era when there where no IoT appliances and cryptographic boot ROMs so it doesn’t cover these things unfortunately.

@torvalds

@ozamidas @pkal @torvalds viral licenses are completely detached from how laws actually work. In EU GPL got completely dismantled.

@karen @torvalds Since when "fun" is a required part of a discussion on software licences. Judge plainly says that "The Plain Language of the Agreements does not Support the Alleged Duty". Seems not to be a "fun reading" on your part, but clear enough, regardless of what people/community "feels"...

@kbruen @torvalds @pkal
The mistake here is that once they sold it to you, it's no longer their hardware, it IS your own hardware.

@torvalds Does using software under the GPLv2 license allow *anyone* to sue you?

You'd think that if someone breaks the terms of a license, it'd be the owner of the software who has to sue for breaking the license. While this may be delegated, i doubt that the SFC has been delegated such powers.

@ghul I don't buy "If that had been the intent, the license would have said so. It didn’t.", it could also be an oversight at the time of publishing the GPLv2, due to not expecting hardware to exist with software that the user cannot modify. The intention seems pretty clear from all other literature, and just the fact that the GPLv3 was written in response to the issue of such hardware appearing.

It is a different thing to argue that users of the license didn't intend/care about this.

@pkal

I get the argument, but I don’t think it holds up legally or historically.

An “oversight” in GPLv2 would only matter if the text were ambiguous.

The court explicitly found that it isn’t.

In licensing, intent is defined by what was written and agreed to —
not by later expectations or moral preferences.

The fact that GPLv3 was explicitly written to address locked-down hardware is actually strong evidence that GPLv2 does not cover that case.

If the intent had already been there, GPLv3 wouldn’t have needed new language.

It’s fair to argue that some people wanted stronger guarantees later on
- but that’s a different claim than saying GPLv2 already required them.

In short:
evolving goals led to a new license, not a reinterpretation of the old one.

Licenses don’t gain new obligations retroactively - just because the world changed.

- GPLv2 not covering the hardware may have been an oversight
- GPLv3 specifically addressing that indicates the intent to cover that
- Linux continuing to use GPLv2 is not an oversight but an explicit signal that the kernel developers do not intend to make claims over hardware access
@ghul @pkal

Re your third point: Linux could not trivially switch to GPLv3 even if kernel developers intended to do so because everyone involved would need to agree and some authors cannot agree anymore on account of being dead. Their contributions would need to be replaced first.

@osma @ghul @pkal

@wonka @osma @ghul @pkal GPLv2 explicitly allows any later version, and removing that is an additional restriction so dubious. It would take a court to sort that question out however, and for Linux it's not likely to ever happen.

More importantly though was also the social contract. Linux was built and people contributed on the GPLv2 basis. Changing that would have been shutting doors on existing contributors. That point to me was the salient one Linus made when GPL3 arrived

@wonka @osma @ghul I never thought about this: If contributors die, do their heirs have the right to agree that their contributions be re-licensed under GPLv3?

@pkal @wonka @osma @ghul you can always relicense code you own barring restrictive agreements like in contracts. What you can't do is remove the existing GPLv2 version There is plenty of kernel code from vendors that's under GPL for Linux, BSD for FreeBSD and proprietary for Windows for example

@kbruen That is my fear, software freedom is about the user not the manufacturers after all 😕. I certainly don't have the means to produce the kind of hardware being talked about, making the freedom more abstract. Part of me thinks that this is a kind of false pragmatism that is due to the Linux Foundations funding, but I don't know enough about that to turn that hunch into a claim...

@pkal @kbruen Linus was sticking to the TiVo is ok argument before Linux Foundation even I think existed, it certainly wasn't relevant back then. Linus was wrong then too but it's his project so his choice 😄

@Logical_Error @neil I think there will be many new opportunities soon. The rules on software quality and traceable origins, the EU regs on and the like will create an opportunity I think to keep taking a lot of the shit and run developers and making them well known to government enforcement of security regulations.
Quality and maintainability are hard to achieve when your supplier hates you, and the regs will push out a lot of problematic mostly but not always Chinese crap.

@torvalds

The GPL has always been a government regulation monkey patch. It's easy to see many other irregularities which need patching, and be compelled to patch. The GPLs limits do not make that untrue.

Framing a TV maker's devices as their property even after sale, is wrong. Regulation, not the GPL should compel dispersement of post sale reownership on everything. Of course.

And maybe eventually governments won't be quite so behind the times. Alas. Not today.

@etchedpixels Could you point that out in https://www.gnu.org/licenses/old-licenses/gpl-2.0.txt? (Or https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux.git/tree/LICENSES/preferred/GPL-2.0)

I only see "later" in Section 9, and there is a big IF attached to "any later version". https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux.git/tree/COPYING does explicitly say "GNU General Public License version 2 only".

@osma @ghul @pkal

@wonka @osma @ghul @pkal lots of the kernel was and is V2 or later if you follow actual licences issued by the authors. Ditto the syscall exception was also never agreed to by third parties. I to be clear think it's a non issue anyway because the intent was clear, and people had decades to object but didn't.

@bastelwombat @pkal @torvalds that sounds like a pretty useless "freedom" and doesn't seem like the original intent behind the GPL. Didn't the GPL come into existence because of closed source printers?

@karen he's talking specifically about the claims made about GPLv2, are those being misconstrued?

@funkyduck https://sfconservancy.org/news/2025/dec/24/vizio-msa-irrelevant-ruling/

@leeloo @torvalds @pkal Yes, but during manufacturing, it is their hardware. So, according to Linus, they shouldn’t be forced during manufacturing to make allowances for you to put your own build of Linux on the device.

@zl2tod @iank @torvalds >> I don't take your post seriously and wouldn't normally reply but you have a megaphone which might distract people.

it is odd, right? sir just confessed to being an ass, which left no room for reasoning in the toot

@leeloo @kbruen @torvalds @pkal

Which is why we stopped selling software in 1999 and moved to leasing it. (Plus we had a Millennium bug in brought-in dongles, and needed to get them out of users' hands before it came live.)

@argv_minus_one @torvalds

Netherlands somewhere?

@namedbird @torvalds

AIUI (IANAlawyer, let alone US lawyer),
- Joe Six-pack requests a copy of the source code to $Modified_GPLd_SW ;
- $GPL_violator does not comply.
-Joe Six-pack now has a complaint and can sue.

@torvalds the point is bass ackwards anyways. What we need is more #OpenFirmware as well as #OpenHardware.

It's about market precedent at the end of the day. It should be a consumer right to also receive the code for all the firmware used in the hardware purchased.

That's a separate problem entirely. It's a whole jungle of different licensing and distribution issues all together that shouldn't concern Linux.

This is why #CoreBoot is such a fantastic project and needs to be supported as well.

@trashheap The “argument” by the SFC is complete garbage, and always has been. There has been no question about the license, and I have made it very clear over the years. And the SFC knows that.

So when they argue their incorrect reading of the GPLv2 in court, they are absolutely not doing GPLv2 enforcement. They are trying to further an agenda that is invalid, and always has been, and is explicitly against the wishes of the actual copyright holders.

So the SFC is just pure trash.

If they want to “protect” some project, let them protect a project that asks for it - not one that is known to not want their kind of protection.

Because what they are doing is a racket, plain and simple.

@iank You might want to run this through the FSF board first before you make blatantly wrong statenents, cause your wrong.

@torvalds is also wrong, but for other reasons like not being able to read what the SFC actually stated.

@wonka @osma @ghul @pkal Re-reading this without the influence of christmas baileys I see where you are going - yes I think you are right on that.

Let the legal crowbar that opens up hardware access be the fact that hardware manufacturers are selling, not leasing, their product to the end consumers. If they are withholding an essential property right to the new owner, to install any operating instructions onto their Turing-complete general-purpose processing device, the correct tool to use is concrete property law, not intellectual property law.

@ghul @pkal GPL v2 was, IIRC, about 1988?
Which was well into the era of binary blobs on ROMs, game cartridges, etc. The question of "hardware controlled by built-in software" was live long before then, and GPL didn't cover it of choice.
In 1988, I was installing highly propriatory SW updates at work with a screwdriver and 2 ROMs on the 8088 industrial SBC.

@WellsiteGeo GPLv2 was released in 1991, version 1 was released in 1989. The basis of which was based on the GNU Emacs General Public License (with similar terms used in other parts of GNU) from 1985.

The GPL (any version) and ROMs are quite compatible, and have always been. The issue with TiVo was different, and @torvalds likes to ignore that fact (similar, in this thread where he ignores everything the SFC wrote or stated).

@ghul @pkal

@torvalds The intention is indeed clear that it does not extend to the hardware, but it's also clear that the intention is to be able to modify the behavior of your device (as evidenced by the trouble the FSF went through to describe in the LGPL how to preserve this ability without requiring access to the whole source code), rather than only to be able to study the code and run modified versions elsewhere.

@amszmidt I wonder why you think I’m ignoring or mis-reading what the SFC has written and stated? Because I’m sadly very familiar with their statements over the years.

Do you think the California Superior court judge also misread what the SFC stated? Because that judge also found their arguments lacking any basis in reality:

The Plain Language of the Agreements does not Support the Alleged Duty

(where that “Alleged Duty” is the baseless arguments from SFC about being able to re-install on the device).

I think you didn’t actually read the ruling, and you may perhaps have read just the flim-flam garbage that the SFC put out about the completely irrelevant issue of “continuing to function properly” which was what Vizio was using as their reason for not releasing keys.

Put another way: I can read. That superior court judge can read. I think you need to learn to read. And you need to take what the SFC then says in court - and on their blog - with a big pinch of salt.

I realize that other people like the GPLv3 and wish the Linux kernel was under that license. But that is simply not the case, and never has been and never will be.

Deal with reality, not your baseless wishes otherwise.

@torvalds well, it's your—and every contributer else's project, so 🙂

Wasn't that the whole point of GPLv3, which the kernel never adopted? To prevent "Tivioization"

@torvalds I didn't know you could post PDFs on the Fediverse.

@torvalds good seeing you here.

@amszmidt @WellsiteGeo @torvalds @pkal

GPLv2 was always ROM-friendly.

The later dispute wasn’t about firmware existence,
but about whether hardware must accept modified firmware.

That question was answered
only in GPLv3.

@torvalds When people say "intent of GPLv2" they often do not make it clear if it's the intent of GNU writing it they're talking about or the intent of you choosing it. It's pretty much a talking over each other situation.

IMO it's fine to make whatever argument in court because that's what civil court is for. It's nice that the court agrees with you so the kernel don't need to be relicensed. But it's also not the end of the world if the court agrees with SFC since It's clear that when GNU wrote GPL they did not intent for this loophole to exist, and many other people that used GPL did not want this loophole to exist for their software (hopefully they've relicensed to GPLv3 by now).

@torvalds @trashheap Another person who used to be sane flopping wildly. You do you. Let them do them. And maybe say something like "screw all you chumps who want to reuse old hardware" to be perfectly clear about your backwards stance.

@cyberia @torvalds It is a shame. I love “right to modify” and “right to repair”, but honestly, GPLv2 does not have a clause about the device itself. It’s only about the software. If the device requires keys and such to run, the GPLv2 says nothing about allowing it to run.

It’s not about what we want the license to mean (although Torvalds has the right to state his intent), it is also about what the license actually says. The judge mentioned:

If this was the intent of the Agreements, the Agreements could have been readily modified to state that users must be permitted to modify and reinstall modified software on products which use the program while ensuring the products continue to function.

The GPLv2 is a little ambiguous with the install scripts, and the judge is saying that due to that ambiguity, it does not cover reinstalling on devices. If it did, then the “agreement” (the GPLv2 license) should explicitly state so.

@rostedt @torvalds Yeah I mean, I'm trying to zoom out from the technicalities and consider that the point of the thing is to try to give users the freedom to hack on devices they own.

@torvalds I'll also expand on this - If hardware had to be open-source, then they should have used only FPGA chips instead of ROMs. This doesn't mean that I am against open hardware; it only means that I agree with the judge, also.

IMHO, both GPL v2 and GPL v3 *need* to exist. This will give the manufacturers and software devs more options for open source licensing, and thus they can choose whether to have open hardware or not. That said, here's another hot take from yours truly - if a modder wants custom software in his Vizio TV for himself, he will do it regardless of licensing, so the SFC is complaining about a problem that they technically have no control over anyway.

@ghul @torvalds

Always my understanding. About open source code, not open or unlocked hardware. That's a completely different issue and an issue that separately needs addressed if you own HW.

@lyyn @neal @kees @torvalds This is, indeed, very relevant!

@pkal @ghul there's a reason why #Linux is #GPLv2-only and not #GPLv3.

• Mostly because GPLv3's terms are a non-starter for many things, as it's demands are just not compatible eith #patents and #copyrights that companies have to abide.

But yeah, the #SFC nowadays is quite of a net negative and it makes them and #copyleft look bad.

• Don't even get @landley started on how "GPL enforcement" made #BusyBox look like litigatious dicks and contributed 0 lines of code back to the project.

Whilst we all would prefer #ReproduceableBuilds and fully-#OpenSource'd and #OpenHardware, beating it out of corporations in court won't be a winning strategy, and lobbying for legislation and espechally choosing repairable and open hardware will be more effective long-term…

@kkarhan @pkal @ghul Bradley's SFC only exists because it schismed off from Eben's SFLC when the original backed away from being obviously counterproductive. So far nobody can convince him to stop making it worse.

https://mstdn.jp/users/landley/statuses/112701616493747491

@landley @pkal @ghul yeah, it's teally sad and counterproductive, as @torvalds pointed out…

@torvalds @raimue This is great for GPLv2 and the linux kernel. Not so great for right to repair - but that's an entirely different debate from GPLv2.

@kkarhan @pkal @ghul @landley

@kkarhan I agree that GPLv3 intentionally limits certain use and leads many corporates to avoid it for certain use cases. I will also agree that having #linux be GPLv2 is both a virtually unchangeable fact of history and probably more of a benefit than a detractor.
I clearly agree that purchasing power is something that can and should be wielded for the good of #repairable merchandise (that could be #openhardware, but also just a non-open hardware device that is however freely flashable due to the existence of mainline integration and sufficiently full source available to have acceptably complete functionality based on said released source)

However: Would you be so great to elaborate on why enforcing your rights ("beating it out of corporations in court") that are one of the central innovations and the literal backbone of open source (next to a few other things) against entities that are in many cases currently #freeloaders is losing strategy for #Opensource? Especially against entities that are effectively and only dealing in cold, hard risk management and will not act unless a sufficient risk/reward trade-off is presented to them.

@jti42 @pkal @ghul cuz I think that in the legal battle game #FLOSS vs. #Corporations that #OpenSource would be on the loosing end.

• The main success factor for #Linux is not only it's #licensing but also that it coopted #GAFAMs into being contributors that pay key #developers.

And since they all have stakes with partially diverging interests, this is a useful way to take their resources (personnel hours and money) for something good (instead of them wasting it on #Enshittification, #Cyberfascism and #Militarization)…

• IOW: Would you rather want some developer from #nvidia work on #Linux or #Palantir's #Govware? Cuz shure as hell said developer ain't gonna stop developing for 6 figures per year either way.

Kinda like @landley pointed out that #Android - unlike #iOS - is gonna be "salvageable" (and due to #Google going *full 'asshole mode' that #fork is necessary sooner than anticipated)…

• This is opportunistic af but that is kinda necessary until the world decides to ban capitalism, redistributes wealth and sentence billionaires to lifetime community service without parole.

#sarcasm #politricks

@kkarhan @jti42 @pkal @landley

I mostly agree
Linux licensing didn’t “win” alone -
but because it redirected corporate self-interest into a shared upstream:

Having engineers from NVIDIA, Google, or even hyperscalers working on the kernel is objectively better than the same talent being fully absorbed by closed, hostile stacks like Palantir.

That said, this is opportunism, not alignment.

It works only as long as:

- interests partially overlap
- upstream governance stays resilient
- forks remain possible
(even if costly)

Android being salvageable
while iOS isn’t
is exactly the point:
the fork is the pressure valve.

Once that becomes infeasible (technically or legally), the balance tips.

Yes, co-opting capital is pragmatic.

But mistaking that for ideological convergence would be a fatal error.

Linux survives not because corporations love freedom: because they can’t fully lock it down without breaking it.

And that tension is the whole game 😆

@ghul @jti42 @pkal @landley precisely!

Besides: All those big corpos contributing don't do so out of kindness either, but because none of them want to cough up way more money for a #CCSS alternative like Wind River #VxWorks, #Oracle #Solaris or god forbid #IBM #zArchitecture #Mainframes!

• #Android will need to have a #Community #Fork unless #Google instantly and retroactively revers their "#Developer #Verification" bs even for non-#GooglePlay #Apps!

@kkarhan @ghul @jti42 @pkal I have a rant somewhere... Sun harvested BSD for Bill Joy etc in 1982. Then BSDi hired the next wave away around 1990. Then MacOS hired away Jordan Hubbard etc in 1999.

I thought GPL was why Linux didn't undergo that... but Apache didn't either. It was the internet community. (The Cathedral in catb was gnu/fsf, not microsoft.) Usenet wasn't enough to turn down a big paycheck, but VC du jour never managed to hire @etchedpixels away from the 1990s community.

@kkarhan @ghul @jti42 @pkal Maybe there were some lessons learned from the unix wars and the competing lithp machines before them.

But "you can still work on the open one in evenings and weekends, but we're going to work you 90 hours a week until our fork is unrecognizable to the outside world and the public code feels unfamiliar to you, and slowly frog boil you away from the open version" doesn't work so well when it's your friend group you hang out with online and meet at conferences.

@kkarhan @ghul @jti42 @pkal of course these days Linux is going invitation only to make sure no new developers develop any social attachment to it, so we'll see how that works out...

@landley @ghul @jti42 @pkal the sad part is that I wish to interject, but I'm not gonna gaslight you or anyone else (including myself) claiming that things are fine.

• They ain't!

And #Linux's survival isn't just because #Hurd still sucks hard and when Linux got started #386BSD wasn't there yet, but because @torvalds (or rather @linuxfoundation) know how to play all the angles and sway all the competing sides into contributing because it's in their own interests…

• In returm I don't subscribe into the conspiracy theory that Microsoft only invests in Linux to enshure it's not gonna threaten Windows. That ship sailed out ofsight wjen MSSQL started supporting Linux…

@lightbites @jti42 @pkal @ghul @landley obviously abolishing #capitalism is a necessity.

@lightbites @kkarhan @jti42 @pkal @ghul Why? The divine right of kings annointed by clergy didn't end because everyone suddenly remembered athenian polls or the roman senate. The US had a revolution and france guillotined its nobility without any real plan because the old thing needed to _end_. They cobbled something new together after the fact, taking multiple attempts in each case.

This is 11 years old now: https://www.ted.com/talks/nick_hanauer_beware_fellow_plutocrats_the_pitchforks_are_coming

Everybody's waiting for the boomers to die first.

@torvalds I couldn't get Bradley to stop using busybox. I'm assuming his new legal theory that he doesn't need copyright holders to sign on is because he ran out.

I was deposed in the visio case last year (answering questions for a camera recording my answers), and Bradley flew in to sit at the table.

https://landley.net/notes-2024.html#24-06-2024

@etchedpixels @wonka @osma @ghul @pkal "At your option."

Each new derived work adds a separate layer of copyright, and you need compatible licenses to each copyrights in order to distribute the resulting work. If ANY of those copyright holders explicitly declines the "or later" option, the only license the work may be distributed under is the "fails closed" subset.

Linus explicitly declined "or later" option for his copyrights in september 2000, long before v3 existed.

https://web.archive.org/web/20021223110351/http://www.ussg.iu.edu/hypermail/linux/kernel/0009.1/0096.html

@etchedpixels @wonka @osma @ghul @pkal You could always try your own https://web.archive.org/web/20071128105420/http://busybox.net/~landley/forensics.txt to show the subset you're using contains none of the copyrighted material you don't have your desired license for, but good luck doing that on the Linux kernel with Linus' copyrights. (And that's _before_ you bring up compilation copyrights or the weird European inalienable stuff.)

@landley @kkarhan @ghul @jti42 @pkal Red Hat was pretty small when I joined it but Bob Young was small businessman having a success not VC. He always understood how the system worked. My job description at RH was basically 'do shit that you think needs doing and let us know what you did, unless there's a panic here in which case drop everything'. That worked for RH as they could tell customers 'yes if it goes to shit we can fix it because we have these people'.

@landley @wonka @osma @ghul @pkal That's fine 2.0.39 is still the best Linux kernel 😁

@etchedpixels

> GPLv2 explicitly allows any later version, and removing that is an additional restriction so dubious.

Legally a licence or a contract memorialises the understanding between parties at the time. There can't be a meeting of the minds on terms one party added after that. So actually the effect of the "or later" language when added before the final form of GPLv3 was known is what is dubious.

@etchedpixels @landley @ghul @jti42 @pkal I mean, the reason to pay #RedHat & #SUSE for any business is that they offer very high #SLAs for those willing to pay (i.e. #Finance) and those customers basically demand to get a named account manager they can yell at and expect a "Yes, we'll fix it ASAP!" as the only reply.

• Not shure if Red Hat still offers an #insurance option at their highest support tiers for #damages due to software errors and associated #downtime. This was something #Microsoft would never offer for #Windows!

That the fixes and improvements would get contributed back to #Linux was and is the original premise, even tho Red Hat decided to axe their "gateway drug" (#CentOS) used to lure businesses into supporting, targeting and using #RHEL…

@kkarhan @etchedpixels @ghul @jti42 @pkal Circa y2k the guys brought in to handle Red Hat's IPO explained how Sun made its money: Large gov/corp procurement contracts often cap allowed profit at a percentage of the cost of materials, so bidders would spec a $5k solaris seat instead of $50 linux.

Red Hat went "If we charge way more sales may go UP?" and introduced Red Hat Enterprise which ate Sun's lunch. That tail wagged the desktop dog, the engineers got sucked over to where the money was...

@kkarhan @etchedpixels @ghul @jti42 @pkal It was only a technical story of Linux defeating Solaris once they were on an even playing field. Getting there was regulatory loophole shenanigans and backroom deals. (Then the different ecosystem led to very different evolutionary pressures.)

That's my understanding, anyway. I heard about it thirdhand. But it was only ~5 years between Red Hat's IPO and Sun accepting $$$ from Microsoft to support SCO, which was not done from a position of strength.

@landley @kkarhan @ghul @jti42 @pkal There was a lot more going on here and a lot of people have no idea quite how directly involved some very large banks were in the whole process. The idea that Red Hat, SuSE etc created enterprise products and the big banks jumped on it is sort of backwards. The banks needed a solution to the collapse of expensive proprietary Unix, and they knew it wasn't going to be Windows. They also wanted at least two competing suppliers.

@etchedpixels @landley @kkarhan @ghul @jti42 @pkal Meanwhile: SCO died because they'd laboriously pieced together a licensing nightmare—each sale of Open Desktop circa 1993 cost SCO $250 in licensing fees to other companies. By 1995 they COULD HAVE eaten Red Hat's lunch by simply grabbing the Linux kernel and launching "SCO Linux" as a gateway drug; but instead they decided to buy an SVR4.2 license and focus on enterprise sales (which ran straight into the trap you identified).

@etchedpixels @landley @ghul @jti42 @pkal OFC I didn't dove into that rabbithole.

Granted, Banks didn't want to deepen Lock-In onto OS/360 and z/OS and also all the Unix options sucked too...

@kkarhan @etchedpixels @ghul @jti42 @pkal I did dive into it, especially back then:

https://landley.net/history/mirror

https://www.fool.com/archive/portfolios/rulemaker/2000/02/17/why-microsofts-stock-options-scare-me.aspx

But in the absence of retrospective books like "under the radar" or "fuck it, I'm out" interviews like https://landley.net/notes-2010.html#24-10-2010 it's hard to get the full story on stuff. Back when I was actively pursuing computer history I usually had to find/do interviews with at least three firsthand witnesses and triangulate to get a reasonable picture.

@cstross @etchedpixels @kkarhan @ghul @jti42 @pkal I did SO much research on them for http://www.catb.org/~esr/halloween/halloween9.html

Did you know the asshole taking advantage of Ray Noorda's senility went on to be the main driver for the current anti-porn internet censorship crusade?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ralph_Yarro_III#CP80

It's all the same villains...

@cstross @etchedpixels @kkarhan @ghul @jti42 @pkal (And yes I'm aware sco/caldera wasn't sco/tarantella, but original sco started as two guys in a garage Paul Allen hired to port Microsoft Xenix to the IBM PC, so they went from evil to evil...)

@landley @etchedpixels @kkarhan @ghul @jti42 @pkal Not exactly: The "two guys in a garage" bought out Microsoft when BillG lost interest in UNIX and ran it as a successful UNIX VAR for several years. That was the incarnation of the company I worked for, back when Caldera was "two guys in a garage" and were actually pushing a credibly polished Linux distribution …

And yes, Yarro acquired Caldera then tanked their Linux ambitions and pivoted hard to evil lawsuits. Scumbag.

@kkarhan @etchedpixels @landley @ghul @jti42 @pkal governments, too. Secure versions of Unix were generally awful in every respect.

@jmorris @jti42 @etchedpixels @landley @ghul @pkal plus auditability is a big thing in #CriticalInfrastructure, with #NORAD allegedly using #BusyBox because they allegedly claim to manually audit every line of code manually so having a simple & auditable system reduces cost.

• Not to mention having sourcecode access & reproduceable builds is sometimes mandated in these setups…

@cstross @etchedpixels @ghul @jti42 @pkal I thought billg sold it to them for a song when he found xenix code sucked into system III (just like BSDi) and decided AT&T was too big to sue so he sour grapesd Unix and hired "chief unix hater" Dave Cutler away from DEC to make him a unix killer.

But xenix had already spent years in limbo ever since Paul Allen left MS after overhearing Gates+Ballmer scheming how to get his stock back if the then undiagnosed Hodgkins Lymphoma killed him.

@jmorris @jti42 @kkarhan @etchedpixels @ghul @pkal FIPS 151-2 put pressure on posix to have holes big enough to drive S/360 and Windows NT through. Heck, Apple had a unix for the macintosh.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A/UX

Dell had a unix:

https://gunkies.org/wiki/Dell_UNIX

In the early 80s most unixes were bsd based until post-breakup AT&T came around threatening lawsuits to switch them all over to sysv. Thus sunos->solaris and a/os->aix and so on. Robert Young's "Under the Radar" had a chapter on that...

@kkarhan @jmorris @jti42 @etchedpixels @ghul @pkal The norad use was in the big wargames-inspired display they added because visitors who had seen the movie complained the reality to match up to their expectations. So slightly less mission critical than I thought when first told about it, but they still had to make sure nothing exfiltrated or altered data.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N7fzx1GTeuk

@landley @jmorris @jti42 @kkarhan @ghul @pkal A/UX was actually a pretty good Unix platform and very well integrated with Quickdraw and the like for the desktop.

@etchedpixels @landley @jmorris @jti42 @ghul @pkal I mean, @thisdoesnotcomp took a look at A/UX some time ago…

• Obviously the switch to using #NeXTstep as foundation makes #macOS the only #Unix as per spec with any market share to speak of - tho that's more of an accident…

@etchedpixels @landley @jmorris @jti42 @ghul @pkal @thisdoesnotcomp meanwhile @ActionRetro is doing cursed stuff to it...

@landley @jmorris @jti42 @kkarhan@infosec.space @etchedpixels @ghul @pkal
Reminds me that there was even a Unix for the Amiga.

@torvalds this, so much this, Happy New years Linus! :)

@cyberia @rostedt @torvalds @karen

I very much believe in the Right to Repair. I am just very strongly feel that the right way to achieve this is via legislation, and not by trying to use the GPLv2 and the Linux Kernel as a club against companies to try to achieve this goal. Why? Because if you try to use GPL code as a lever, in the long term, companies will just switch from using GPL code to BSD-licensed code, such as FreeBSD and Toybox instead of Linux and Busybox. This will weaken the Linux kernel development community, without actually addressing the general Right to Repair problem. It might solve the specific case for some company who might (after they get harassed by lawsuits) consider themselves foolish for using Linux --- but to the extent that it causes companies to run away screaming, that's not something that I personally want.

If instead we have legislation mandating Right to Repair, then for BSD or proprietary code, someone might need to reverse engineer and patch the original binary code, but that's something which is doable. And there are enough benefits of Linux and the GPL that many companies *have* chosen to use Linux instead of FreeBSD.

It's for this reason that I never have been willing to sign over to the SFC the enforcement rights for my personal copyrights. And why I would recommend to my colleagues that, to the extent that they care about the long-term health of the Linux kernel development community, that they do *not* support the SFC's lawsuit agenda. You can catch a lot more flies with honey, instead of vinegar. Just take a look at the development statistics for Linux[1] and the many companies who employ Linux kernel developers. If you compare this to the number of companies that support, say, Busybox development, especially after a hyper-aggressive GPL enforcement campaign, perhaps that might be a hint that reaching out in friendship as opposed to waving a club around might be a better approach in terms of keeping a development community healthy. And after all, isn't that what "conservancy" (as used by organizations like the Nature Conservancy) is all about?

[1] https://lwn.net/Articles/1046966/

@kbruen @torvalds @pkal

https://www.fsf.org/news/fsf-to-be-deposed-in-sfc-v-vizio-updates-relevant-faq-entry

Vizio is a shit company which used the FAQ of the FSF with bad faith and the judge believed Vizio's interpretation as correct.

The SFC has a section devoted to this case, to be trialed on January 12, 2026.
https://sfconservancy.org/copyleft-compliance/vizio.html