this post was submitted on 28 Jul 2026
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They make it sound like the *WRTs were the worst thing to happen to consumer networking and that corporations not being required to contribute back to projects has made BSD stronger, rather than given companies free labor. I find the *BSDs to be pretty interesting, but let's not pretend that they're benefiting from companies using their work. Very shilly tone to this article.
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.
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?
The practical difference is that the code is there for whoever wants to use it.
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.