The Free Software Foundation, one of the principal advocates and protectors of open source software has filed a complaint against communications technology giant Cisco for copyright infringement. According to the foundation, Cisco had been using programs such as GCC (GNU Compiler Collection) or the GLibC (GNU C Library) in direct or slightly modified form in the firmware of its Linksys routers for the past several years, but failed to comply with the terms of the GPL and LGPL licenses.
The Free Software Foundation holds copyright over core components and libraries of the GNU operating system, such as GNU C Library, GNU Coreutils, GNU Readline, GNU Parted, GNU Wget, GNU Compiler Collection, GNU Binutils, and GNU Debugger. All these applications are also essential components of all Linux distributions, and are distributed by the FSF under their widely used and adopted GPL (General Public License) and LGPL (Lesser General Public License).
FSF's Licensing Compliance Engineer, Brett Smith, explains on his blog that, what he calls a “five-years-running game of Whack-a-Mole” with Cisco, started back in 2003. At that time the Foundation contacted Cisco following reports that the WRT54G Linksys router model used a modified GNU/Linux system as firmware, but the company was not releasing the entire source code. The terms of the GPL and LPGL explicitly stated that any program resulting from the use of code released under these licenses retained the terms of the original licenses, which required that the human readable code be provided for free.
What at first seemed a single isolated incident soon turned into an epidemic of products infringing the copyright. Despite their best efforts of advising the company on how to achieve full compliance with their licenses, “new issues were regularly discovered before we could finish addressing the old ones,” Smith notes. He also remarks that this lawsuit is a last resort for the Foundation as it “takes resources that [they] would rather spend elsewhere.”
Smith concludes that “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.” In the publicly available complaint the Foundation asks for an injunction against the networking hardware vendor that would prohibit it from using its free software, and which would require that all infringing materials be impounded and that damages be paid.
This lawsuit is even more notable as, according to Peter Brown, executive director of the FSF, this is for the first time in the 15-year history of the foundation that it decided to go to court. “We have always managed to get the companies we have worked with to take their obligations seriously,” Brown explains, according to a press release. “We are enforcing our licenses to protect the rights that everyone should have with all software: to use it, share it, and modify it as they see fit," Richard Stallman, the president and founder of the FSF, has pointed out.
According to NetworkWorld, the multinational corporation, who's annual revenue is estimated at $39 billion, has responded by saying that “Cisco is a strong supporter of open source software. Cisco takes its open source software obligations and responsibilities seriously and is disappointed that a suit has been filed by the Free Software Foundation related to our work with them in our Linksys Division. We are currently reviewing the issues raised in the suit, but believe we are substantially in compliance. We have always worked very closely with the FSF and hope to reach a resolution agreeable to the company and the foundation.”
The Free Software Foundation Sues Cisco
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