[sf-lug] RMS Sues Cisco

[Rick Moen]

Quoting phillip tribble (phillip.tribble at gmail.com):

> He should have waited until after the recession!

Because copyright law's been suspended for the duration?  Because FSF's 
suddenly in the business of writing proprietary software on a charity
basis for corporations?  ;->

> "The Free Software Foundation (FSF), the group behind the popular GPL open
> source license, has filed a copyright infringement lawsuit against Cisco and
> wants an injunction against the networking giant."
> http://www.internetnews.com/storage/article.php/3790721/Cisco+Hit+With+Open+Source+Lawsuit.htm

Ironic that Jupitermedia (Internetnews.com) refers to it as an "open
source" lawsuit, given FSF's attitude problem towards that term.

On all occasions of my acquaintance, Software Freedom Law Center
(enforcement branch of FSF) has been incredibly cautious and diplomatic,
always making sure of facts before even pursuing a complaint and always
working privately with violators before even so much as putting out a
press release, let alone filing suit.  I gather, therefore, that
Cisco/Linksys have been stomping all over FSF's copyrights, were failing
to comply with FSF's software's terms of use, and need some remedial
court-administered lessons on the definition of private property.

(As always, if you don't like the licence terms of a piece of software,
you're always free to not use it.  Cisco/Linksys cannot redistribute
other people's sofware and then retroactively refuse to comply with the
owners' preconditions for that property.)