Free Software Foundation targets Cisco with a lawsuit

Free Software Foundation targets Cisco with a lawsuit

Free Software Foundation has filed a copyright infringement related lawsuit against Cisco Systems in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York.

The lawsuit claims that Cisco is violating their copyrights in various products sold in the market.

These products are mostly under the popular Linksys brand which is owned by Cisco.

Richard Stallman, president and founder of the FSF spoke about this lawsuit: “Our licenses are designed to ensure that everyone who uses the software can change it. In order to exercise that right people need the source code, and that’s why our licenses require distributors to provide it. 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.”

Most of the charges are related to software which is licensed under the GNU General Public License (GPL). Some of the others are licensed under the GNU Lesser General Public License (LGPL).

Incidentally, Free Software Foundation has been working with the company since 2003 to help them comply with the software agreements. FSF added in its statement: “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.”

Checkout: Free Software Foundation