FSF Settles Suit Against Cisco

Saint Aardvark writes "The Free Software Foundation has announced that they've settled their lawsuit with Cisco (reported earlier here). In the announcement, they say that Cisco has agreed to appoint a Free Software Director for Linksys, who will report periodically to the FSF; to notify Linksys customers of their rights; and to make a monetary donation to the FSF. An accompanying blog entry explains further: 'Whenever we talk about the work we do to handle violations, we say over and over again that getting compliance with the licenses is always our top priority. The reason this is so important is not only because it provides a goal for us to reach, but also because it gives us a clear guide to choosing our tactics. This is the first time we've had to go to court over a license violation.'"

Comments

Re:Fear

[Anonymous Coward]

You mean this MIT license? The one which says "do whatever you like, just don't sue and provide this notice"? The old Apache license is similar, and 2.0 even includes patent provisions.

Looks like the FUD already worked on you. Not all licenses are the same, nor are all OSS licenses viral.

Re:Fear

[david_thornley]

First, find a new lawyer (assuming you're not just trolling).

Second, if your organization is allowing developers to throw in libraries from all over, without checking licenses, you've got some pretty big problems, and you're probably better off if they're using OSI-approved licenses (which at least allow commercial use). That still doesn't mean that the libraries are appropriate or of good quality, which is why I'd be a bit slower to worry about the legal issues.

Third, if you think commercial licenses are easier to work with, you need to read a few. It's very, very common to have little exclusions and conditions in them. There aren't all that many OSI-approved licenses, and you can come up with a list of approved ones for certain projects fairly easily. Besides, the commercial places employ nastier lawyers.

Fourth, there is no risk of having to publish source code, even if you've wrongly linked it with GPLed code and distributed it. That isn't a legal remedy, and no court will order you to do it.