Cisco and Free Software Foundation Settle

As more businesses make use of “free” / open source software to build commercial products, friction between the communities is inevitable. The Free Software Foundation (FSF) promotes the development and use of free (as in freedom) software, particularly the GNU operating system and variants (including Linux).

Last year the FSF filed a copyright infringement lawsuit against Cisco, specifically around the Linksys product range (Linksys is now under the Cisco brand).

We began working with Cisco in 2003 to help them establish a process for complying with our software licenses, and the initial changes were very promising,” explained Brett Smith, licensing compliance engineer at the FSF. “Unfortunately, they never put in the effort that was necessary to finish the process, and now five years later we have still not seen a plan for compliance. As a result, we believe that legal action is the best way to restore the rights we grant to all users of our software.”

Today Cisco and FSF announced that they have settled the case. Cisco has agreed to appoint a Free Software Director to supervise compliance with the requirements of free software licenses such as the GPL (the GNU General Public License). Cisco will also be making a financial contribution to the FSF.