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

This is the first time we've had to go to court

[overshoot]

And it looks like they couldn't even keep it up for the whole show.

Backsliding to the old cooperative solutions, eh FSF? I suppose they'll never change.

FSFAA!

[Dareth]

The article only says that, "Cisco will also make a monetary contribution to the FSF.", but does not list an actual dollar amount.

I am sure you hired an experienced intellectual property attorney to properly calculate the monetary damage by Cisco. Like a former **AA lawyer who has not been hired by the Obama administration yet.

I am sure they could get the calculate the "true cost" of the damages to the nearest million.

Re:FSFAA!

[Brandybuck]

It's "free" software. Given away to everyone at zero cost and no price tag. The license holders have not been affected, the original software is still in its original state. The monetary damage should thus be zero dollars and zero cents. A good lawyer of sufficient bulk could make a case that there was emotional damage to the original developers, and a ruffling of their sensitivities, but there are still no material damages necessitating monetary compensation.

Shakedown

[Brandybuck]

The sad thing is that so many people think GNu is about freedom...

Re:Shakedown

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm not real big on the GPL

Maybe, but you're a complete twat nevertheless.

Fear

[EmperorOfCanada]

This is one of the two big bogeymen that I, as a developer, fear. Licenses like this and patents. If you develop anything on Linux do you have to give out your source code? Link to this maybe, link to that maybe; after enough maybes you can be sure that you have gone one library too far. There is a place for opensource and there is a place for proprietary; and I love them both. Show these licenses (GPL, MIT, Apache, LGPL) to a lawyer and they will just say "stay the hell away from those". The result is that many companies are pushed back into the warm embrace of Microsoft because at least you know where you stand with code compiled with VCPP and any other libraries you bought. It might cost more in the short term but if it means you get to keep the key IP asset of your company safe then it becomes worth it. You might argue that one should just read the licenses but with dozens of developers potentially including libraries that may themselves include other libraries with their own licenses you can't easily be 100% sure.

Yeah, thank god Windows is closed source. I

[SmallFurryCreature]

If closed source is secure, then please hook up windows XP to the internet without a opensource router in between.

Thanks for playing clueless scaremongerer. You fail, please insert another coin to try again.