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FSF and Cisco Settle - For Real, This Time

By Pamela Jones et al.

The Free Software Foundation and Cisco have now settled the litigation over the GPL and Cisco's subsidiary, Linksys. Cisco has agreed to appoint a Free Software director for Linksys, and it has agreed to notify previous recipients of Linksys products of their rights under the GPL and other licenses, to publish a licensing notice on the Linksys website, and it will "continue to make the complete and corresponding source code for versions of the FSF programs used with current Linksys products freely available on its website." And Cisco will make a monetary contribution to the FSF.

There was a fair amount of misinformation about this topic recently. The link is just one example. Some were spinning that FSF had "lost" and unlike earlier GPL enforcement lawsuits had gotten "nothing" and had been forced to settle without gaining anything. They based the FUD on this dismissal notice [PDF]. As you can see, that was misinformation, however sincere it might have been. Or not. The parties merely agreed to dismiss since negotiations were going well, so as to focus on the settlement talks, and each had the right to ramp back up again in court, if things went south. But it worked out well, as they felt it would, and the settlement is now announced.

The GPL stands, much as that frustrates some. Cisco, by the way, negotiated, I've heard, in good faith, and the eventual settlement reflects that effort on their part to comply with the GPL going forward and to ameliorate earlier difficulties, for which it should be commended.

Full post as published by Groklaw on May 20, 2009 (boomark / email).