Only the GPLv3 would force Intel to do that. With v2 they can go the TiVo route and make the source available without giving out the means to make the hardware run your own binaries.
Linux is version 2. Linus is adamant about not using version 3. IIRC, some contributions are v2 or later, but as long as a majority of the code is v2 only, the whole package is v2.
"IIRC, some contributions are v2 or later, but as long as a majority of the code is v2 only, the whole package is v2."
If even one component is v2 rather than "v2 or later", then (I'd assume) the whole project is v2-only, majority or no. It's also not clear if it's permissible to make contributions under "v2 or later" licensing terms, since those contributions are derivative works of Linux itself (which is v2-only).
This will almost certainly always be the case, since changing Linux's license to "GPLv2 or later" (let alone GPLv3) would require unanimous consent from every contributor (and seeing as how - IIRC - one or more said contributors are dead, that consent is thus impossible to achieve unanimously).
The only sensible way to do it is to locate all parts still licensed under GPLv2 and ask every copyright owner alive (or their estates) to relicense their contributions under GPLv2+ or rewrite them from scratch licensing them under GPLv2+.
And convincing Linus the rewritten versions are objectively better than the old ones.
Nope, because they wouldn't use it then. I am not sure why people think the GPL had so much leverage over larger companies that will just build something in house.
But large companies use quite a bit of GPL software. I'm checked my phone, my PVR, my car media system and proprietary GPS I have and all of them have an open source license document that includes some GPL code.
For a hardware company, the GPL just isn't that much of a competitive disadvantage, since most of the software is written to work with their hardware.
Please convince Nvidia of that. Their closed source drivers are a major hindrance in the Linux community. They keep them closed because they feel the driver source would reveal additional details about their hardware, giving up some of their advantage over competitors.
I'm not sure why they used Minix at all. Surely Intel has enough expertise to build a custom OS that does exactly what they need and nothing else? That would have been easier to control for them, and it would have prevented this Minix-related news, which adds only more attention to something they'd have preferred to keep quiet.
Good. At least it will cost them to develop in-house. Raising the expense of doing user-hostile things is one way to dissuade companies from doing them.
Which is exactly what Intel did, since Intel didn't use e.g. Linux. If there were no BSD based OS to use, my bet is that Intel would have continued to use a closed source OS.
