Earlier quoted context omitted.
Well it may not necessarily be malicious. Maybe the developers responsible for say preparing the source tarball properly have just been given a lot of other pressing work.
There is no preparing. They don't own the code. They need to release it in exactly the same state it was in when deployed as binary. Otherwise, they are violating copyright (often referred to as pirates). That said, I'm almost certain that the linux kernel is released under a modified form of the GPL, or at least Linus refuses to enforce parts of the GPL. Binary modules and blobs are a clear violation of GPL, but the…
Nope, it's standard stock GPLv2-only. There's a clarification included in the COPYING file that reminds people that userspace binaries that use the documented system call interface are not considered derived works, but that's not a modification of the license; it's just included for clarity reasons.
or at least Linus refuses to enforce parts of the GPL.
Not entirely. He's stated that he doesn't believe that a kernel module is automatically a derived work of the kernel. For example, he's of the opinion that the nvidia binary driver is not a derived work of Linux because the driver core was first designed and written for a completely different OS.
Regardless, Linus Torvalds is not the last word on this: just about any kernel contributor with copyright ownership could file suit.
There is no preparing. They don't own the code. They need to release it in exactly the same state it was in when deployed as binary. Otherwise, they are violating copyright (often referred to as pirates).
Exactly.