GPL 2 Violators Dragged To Court

[CadCrazy]

You are free to use the source code licenced under GPL 2 to develop your product, but if you take that product out in the market, you should redistribute the source code of the product. That is the call of GPL 2. But some people don't take that seriously. They use whatever they want but contribute nothing in return. At times, they have the audacity to refuse to make available the source code of their product which heavily borrowed code licenced under GPL 2. This brings down the morale of those who wrote that code in initial stage and also weakens the ethics of open source community. But the Free Software Foundation is not going to accept that anymore.

In the first ever case of its kind, The Software Freedom Law Center has filed a copyright infringement lawsuit based on a violation of the GNU General Public License (GPL) on behalf of its clients, two principal developers of BusyBox, against Monsoon Multimedia, Inc. BusyBox is a lightweight set of standard Unix utilities commonly used in embedded systems and is open source software licenced under GPL version 2.

According to Eben Moglen, founding director, SFLC, "Free software licences such as the GPL exist to protect the freedom of computer users. If we don't ensure that these licences are respected, then they will not be able to achieve their goal. Our goal is simply to ensure that Monsoon Multimedia complies with the terms of the GPL."

"We licenced BusyBox under the GPL to give users the freedom to access and modify its source code," said Erik Andersen, a developer of BusyBox and a named plaintiff in the lawsuit filed yesterday in Manhattan Federal District Court. "If companies will not abide by the fair terms of our licence, then we have no choice but to ask our attorneys to go to court to force them to do so."

An excerpt of the complaint filed by SFLC on behalf of the BusyBox developers says: "This is an action by Erik Andersen, an individual, and Rob Landley, an individual, ('Plaintiffs') by and through their attorneys, the Software Freedom Law Center, Inc., to recover damages arising from infringement of their copyrights by Monsoon Multimedia, Inc., ('Defendant') and to enjoin Defendant’s future infringement. Specifically, Defendant distributed and continues to distribute Plaintiffs’ copyrighted BusyBox software without Plaintiffs’ permission and despite the fact that Plaintiffs notified Defendant of its unlawful activity. Since Defendant has infringed Plaintiffs’ copyrights, and since that infringement is ongoing, Plaintiffs seek damages and injunctive relief." (read the whole legal document at The Software Freedom Law Centre).

Moglen, along with Richard M Stallman has worked hard to create whole new world for free and open source software. This move will take that movement in a new direction: you can't take GPL for granted.

Source

[praka123]

read it already.hope GPL wins.

[contactpraven2001]

well gpl wins they need this in these days .........

[CadCrazy]

^^ yes i also hope so