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FSF Files Suit Against Cisco For GPL Violations
Brett Smith writes "This morning the Free Software Foundation filed suit against Cisco for violations of the GPL and LGPL. There's a blog post with background about the case. The full complaint is available too." The short version, as excerpted by reader byolinux, is that "in the course of distributing various products under the Linksys brand Cisco has violated the licenses of many programs on which the FSF holds copyright, including GCC, binutils, and the GNU C Library. In doing so, Cisco has denied its users their right to share and modify the software."
Yes.
If only there were some way to find out. It's hard to say for sure, but based on this:
I'm thinking maybe they did.
According to the blog post linked in the summary, the FSF has been working with Cisco since 2003 to resolve the issue of GPL compliance, and has received only halfhearted attempts on their part to come into compliance. We're only seeing the FSF's side of the story here, of course, but assuming that they're telling it like it is, the FSF tried many other avenues before deciding to file the lawsuit.
How can we continue to believe in a just universe and freedom to eat crackers if we have no ale?
The FSF has filed suit against Cisco for copyright violations. Cisco distributed code owned by the FSF without permission.
Yes, Cisco could easily be distributing with permission, and hence legally, if they followed the requirements of the GPL. Instead, they chose to distribute without permission, a violation of federal copyright law.
Yes, usually it is just costs + compliance.
But this time, they seem to be pissed (from the stuff they filled with the court, the URI is in the press release):
"Prayer to Relief"
[...]
(2) That the Court order Defendant to pay Plaintiff's actual and consequential damages in-curred, in an amount to be determined at trial or, in the alternative, statutory damages as set forth in 17 U.S.C. 504(c);
(3) That the Court order Defendant to account for and disgorge to Plaintiff all profits derived by Defendant from its unlawful acts;
[...]
In other words: OUCH!
If you read the article, you'll see that they did. They've been working with Cisco for the last five years on it, but according to the FSF never became fully compliant:
As we always do in violation cases, we began a process of working with Cisco to help them understand their obligations under our licenses, and how they could come into compliance. Early on it seemed likely that we could resolve the issues without any fuss.
While we were working on that case, though, new reports came in. Other Cisco products were not in full compliance either. We started talking to the company about those as wellâ"and that's how a five-years-running game of Whack-a-Mole began. New issues were regularly discovered before we could finish addressing the old ones.
During this entire time, Cisco has never been in full compliance with our licenses. At first glance, the situation might look good. It's not difficult to find "source code" on the Linksys site. But you only have to dig a little deeper to find the problems. Those source code downloads are often incomplete or out-of-date. Cisco also provides written offers for source, but we regularly hear about requests going unfulfilled.
Despite our best efforts, Cisco seems unwilling to take the steps that are necessary to come into compliance and stay in compliance. We asked them to notify customers about previous violations and inform them about how they can now obtain complete source code; they have refused to do this, along with the other reasonable demands we have made to consider this case settled. The FSF has put in too many hours helping the company fix the numerous mistakes it's made over the years. Cisco needs to take responsibility for its own license compliance.
No no no.
Cisco has violated copyright law by distributing GPLed FSF code under terms other than specified in the only available license. The ownership and licensing of IOS code is not affected by this in any way. This is the past.
Now for the future. If Cisco wants to keep distributing IOS code mixed with FSF code, there is only one way of doing it. That is to release the code under the GPL, because the FSF doesn't offer any other licenses. Only the IOS code which is mixed with FSF code needs to be released under the GPL. This has no effect on any other IOS code (older or in other products or whatever).
That misunderstanding is why so many people fear the GPL.
The GPL can not force you to relicense your code. None of Cisco's code or Symbians code has to be released. However, unless they chose to relicense it then they are in violation of the GPL and have no license to distribute the GPL'd software.
So they're committing copyright infringement. They can be forced to stop distributing their products, they can be sued for damages, but under no circumstance can they be forced to turn over code-- though that might be the easiest way to settle the lawsuit.
Since the user doesn't get the code.
Or when are MS going to release the BSD code in Windows, including all enhancements?
So they can't change the BSD code in Windows, can they.
The user doesn't have to be a developer either. They can PAY a developer to do it. They are still the user. And, since the BSD allows the new developer to give the binary closed, the developer the user has paid can take the freedom to get someone else to do more work from the user who paid for it.
Don't be an idiot.
This is why free licenses such as BSD should be adopted for any commercial project.
Cisco didn't "adopt" the GPL; quite the opposite, they're trying to avoid it. However, they put *themselves* in a position where they'll either be forced to or be guilty of breaking the license terms.
Avoid viral licenses such as *GPL.
Who should? The people who wrote the original code? Maybe they don't want companies like Cisco using it if it means closing the code off and not returning anything. That's their choice.
Cisco? They knew- or should have known- the implications of the GPL and had- as you imply- the choice of using BSD-licensed software instead.
Perhaps there wasn't a BSD-licensed version of what they were looking for? If so, tough shit! No-one's under any obligation to provide them with that for free. Cisco could of course pay someone to write it (and release it under the BSD license if they so wish). Or they're free to use the GPLed code and adhere to the terms it was released under.
But they thought they could get away with using the no-cost GPL code without honouring the obligations. They knew what they were doing.
"Slashdot - News and Chat Sites Deviant". (Click "homepage" link above for details).
The reason why this will be unsettling to Cisco is because some of the products have integrated key IOS files in order to retain backwards compatibility. Which means that those files now fall under the GPL.
This is false. Releasing GPL code can never automatically force other code to be licensed under the GPL. What it does mean is that someone was distributing code without a license, and may be liable for copyright infringement damages. If they *had* licensed their other code under the GPL, they wouldn't have been liable.
In general, a number of GPL-using authors tend to be okay with someone who has infringed doing a subsequent GPL-based release as a way to clear the air (and often then forgive previous damage caused by earlier infringements), but (a) they need not forgive the damages in such a case, (b) the infringer need never do a GPL-based release of their own code, instead simply paying damages.