Basically yes, but that's often not good enough either. Lots of third party code OEMs end up with in their kernels, unmaintainable, and often incompatible with anything.
I own Crappy unupdated Android one of. And the drivers use the Linux kernel. Last I checked, they need to release source for their drivers.
So where is it? And why can't we upstream those patches and "fix" android?
The OEM never releases the source.
And courts have decided that it's not enough if you have some contributions to the kernel yourself or are a user to force them to release it, you have to have made significant contributions to force them to release it via the courts.
And Torvalds and the major kernel maintainers all refuse to enforce the GPL, and actively campaign against doing so.
On most phones, there are zero external kernel modules loaded. The SoC vendor bakes it all into the ketnel, and the OEM gets the kernel as a blob. Which means all of it is subject to the GPL.
But this was my main area of attack. You compiled the drivers directly into the kernel. Making it all GPL. Now, as a strict reading, I have to have the device to make the request. That's not difficult. Ive phones from a lot of US named companies.
I just want the rights enumerated in the GPL as granted to end users. I'm no kernel maintainer. Just a cranky person who wants the GPL enforced as any license.
Yeah, it turns out it’s not that easily enforcable. There are still court cases going on, but the current legal situation seems to be that unless you’ve contributed significant code to the kernel, you have no legal leg to stand on.
Because the OEM is simply saying "yes, we violated the GPL, and infringed the copyright of the developers", but the only ones who could sue against that would be devs that contributed significant amounts of code.
Two questions: why? and why use the GPL if you’re not going to enforce it?
The source helps little since it's just opaque garbage with little to no meaning.
It's a lot of work, who is supposed to do that?
Some bits of the N900 kernel are still in the process of being upstreamed afaik.