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FreeBSD Just Removed The Last Of Its GPL-Licensed Code
(hackaday.com)
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this post was submitted on 28 Jul 2026
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You are very shrilly yourself. Plenty of companies have shown it isn't hard to take GPL without contributed back. There are high odds you are using a chrome based browser to read this - did you know that is a GPL project because once upon a time it was khtml (from the KDE project), but the changes were never contributed back. Many embedded companies have their own fork of linux as well - their changes are all available as the GPL requires, but the changes won't be accepted to the kernel as is and so the fact that they are available is useless.
Meanwhile there are many companies using FreeBSD who choose to contribute their changes back, just like some companies choose to contribute back to various GPL projects they use.
Chromium is what you're ignoring here, and they are contributed back.
And that's fine, if someone ever did want to pick it up, they could.
I didn't say there weren't people/companies contributing to BSD. I am saying that since they aren't required to, BSD isn't getting the level of support it deserves. The companies contributing to GPL projects are required by law to release the source, so they might as well contribute to the project. I can guarantee there would be a lot less progress in linux/gnuland if releasing the source wasn't required.
The problem is that with GPL we can at least cherrypick the features and implement them ourselves, with BSD, everthing get closed and you get fucked
Um, so yay for companies that have stolen open code and not contributed back? What even is your angle here?
In the end every licence is only as strong as your lawyers. And even if they don't get merged into the main tree, their code being available is still a big win for users and devs alike
What do you mean "never contributed back"? All of these projects give their source code back, as the GPL requires.
The source is available but not in a form that will be accepted upstream. Often for good reason, but that doesn't do you any good.
So? It's not like upstream should have to accept everything every fork does.
What is the practical difference between code not accepted and code hidden?
You can look it and go "yeah, it is shit, but I see what it is doing, it is better done like this" and push that upstream. Saves time reverse engineering.
While someone can, in practice that doesn't happen in most cases
Does happen though. Better to have the option and not often use it, than not have the option at all.
The practical difference is that the code is there for whoever wants to use it.