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FSF Settles Suit Against Cisco



Bill Bogstad wrote:
> It doesn't sound like the FSF even got their court costs for filing 
> the lawsuit (or other costs) repaid.   If that's the case, then the
> financially correct thing for a vendor to do is to calculate how much
> it would cost to be compliant and compare that with the potential
> future lawyer's fees to settle a non-compliance suit.

The FSF might find it more efficient to address this problem using a
carrot approach rather than a stick approach. For example, creating a
"GPL Compliant" trademark logo, and licensing it to companies that use
GPL licensed components in their products, contingent upon them
complying with the terms of the license.

(Of course a company could use the badge in violation of the terms, and
the FSF would be back in the same boat needing to sue them. Though
perhaps that'd be a more obvious and cheaper case to prosecute.)


> I'm not sure exactly what advantage the free software community gets
> for the conciliatory approach that the FSF has used in cases like
> this.   The products that Linksys makes have a high turnover in the
> marketplace.  If it takes a couple of years to actually get complete
> source code,  the product will probably no longer be available for
> sale.

True.

Currently if you try and make an informed purchasing decision, it takes
a fair bit of research. (First, you need to track down if, and then
where the source is made available for download, which is often hidden.
Typically this will require emailing the vendor and waiting for a reply.
Then you need to find reports from other developers to see if the source
provided is actually complete and useful.)

Creating a "bad vendor" list would be another approach the FSF could
take. (Chances are the FSF would then get sued for listing a company as
a bad vendor. But defending such a suite would probably be a better use
of their legal resources.)

Of course compliance isn't black-and-white. They'd need to develop a
grading system, ranking and weighing each aspect of compliance, and
aggregating the results from all the products a vendor sells.

Then they could apply any money saved from legal fees to marketing the
trademark and/or bad vendor list, as both require consumer awareness to
be effective.


Another useful tool the FSF could provide would be some automated way an
end-user could report a GPL violation that would include sending an
email to the vendor summarizing the GPL terms and stating that they were
being investigated for non-compliance, much the same way the Better
Business Bureau will notify vendors when a complaint has been filed
against them. It may not carry any real legal weight, but it might get
some vendors to realize their non-compliance has been noticed.

Numerous times I've emailed device vendors that are clearly using GPL
code asking for the link to their source, only to be told, "we don't
provide the source." I write back informing them that they're in
violation of the GPL, but something slightly more official looking would
carry more weight.


> I believe the FSF should work towards making non-compliance suits a
> self-funding part of their operations.

How would that work? They can attempt to do this by seeking monetary
damages, but that isn't a reliable funding model.

If they built the "GPL Compliant" trademark into something that had some
value in the marketplace, then they could charge a revenue proportional
licensing fee (in other words, bigger companies pay more), and use that
to fund compliance enforcement.

 -Tom

-- 
Tom Metro
Venture Logic, Newton, MA, USA
"Enterprise solutions through open source."
Professional Profile: http://tmetro.venturelogic.com/






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