> It's much easier to upstream your desired changes than maintain a separate fork (closed or otherwise) long-term. Additionally, many of the contributors have been using it for own servers, not required to contribute back.
Then why is ~75% of the kernel from corporate commits today? You think large tech companies just started to become coincidentally generous with the advent of Linux?
> This ignores the entire existence of FreeBSD, NetBSD, OpenBSD.
The BSD are quite niche in install base and highly rely on GPL'd ports from Linux.
And, by far the most popular OS in the BSD family tree is MacOS, which is primarily closed source.
> This ignores the existence of heavy DRM schemes, obfuscation, kernel-level anticheat spyware, criminalisation of copyright-circumvention schemes, etc.
I'm not ignoring it, I'm telling you that would be more common, if you remove the all of the other mechanisms by which a company could choose. Without any legal controls whatsoever, the only option to control the use of a company's software would be through technical means. Removing other options would be incentivizing this.
Then why is ~75% of the kernel from corporate commits today? You think large tech companies just started to become coincidentally generous with the advent of Linux?
> This ignores the entire existence of FreeBSD, NetBSD, OpenBSD.
The BSD are quite niche in install base and highly rely on GPL'd ports from Linux.
And, by far the most popular OS in the BSD family tree is MacOS, which is primarily closed source.
> This ignores the existence of heavy DRM schemes, obfuscation, kernel-level anticheat spyware, criminalisation of copyright-circumvention schemes, etc.
I'm not ignoring it, I'm telling you that would be more common, if you remove the all of the other mechanisms by which a company could choose. Without any legal controls whatsoever, the only option to control the use of a company's software would be through technical means. Removing other options would be incentivizing this.