Deimos X11 bindings license question

[Joakim via Digitalmars-d]

On Wednesday, 6 September 2017 at 06:43:45 UTC, Brad Roberts 
wrote:
> On 9/5/2017 10:19 PM, Joakim via Digitalmars-d wrote:
>> I'll also note that if a developer uses GPL software on the 
>> server, he doesn't have to give any source to users who access 
>> apps on the server remotely.  For example, Google uses a linux 
>> kernel with proprietary modifications on a million servers 
>> running their search engine, yet my understanding is that they 
>> have not made most of those modifications available, as 
>> they're not required to under the GPL.  By contrast, every 
>> Android vendor has to release the source for their linux 
>> kernel.  It's not a coincidence that GPL software took off on 
>> the sever, until and except for Android's kernel.
>
> Your understanding is somewhat flawed.  Google is a major 
> contributor to the linux kernel as well as quite a few other 
> projects.  They are extraordinary members of the open source 
> community and the internet at large.  They have one of the most 
> proactive security teams out there as another example.
>
> Please, do a little research.  While there's a lot to dislike 
> about google and their public facing services, they offset that 
> quite a bit in my eyes through how their engineering staff 
> behaves.

My understanding is based on research, specifically this lwn 
article from 8 years ago, which says they didn't work with the 
kernel community much back when they were mostly running linux on 
servers:

https://lwn.net/Articles/357658/

Of course, as I noted, they've since had to release the source to 
the linux kernels they use for Android, because the GPL requires 
it.  I haven't seen anything about their releasing much of their 
modifications to their server kernels, please share your research 
if you know more about that.