Dec
Suit against CISCO, about damn time
That’s right. It’s been years in the making but better late than never. Long time offender Cisco, who the FSF had hoped to talk some sense into since establishing the compliance process in 2003, seems to be either a slow learner, or just plain cheat.
As others have pointed out since this story broke out, FSF would rather sit and talk compliance with offenders than file lawsuits. I believe it’s high time we saw some more proactive enforcement measures on the FSF’s behalf.
As per Brett Smith, licensing compliance engineer at the FSF, which is a fancy way of identifying someone who deals with license-related issues 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.”
That really puts things in perspective, doesn’t it? An outright rejection I can understand. Had Cisco refused to listen to the FSF at all, at least we’d have had a clear case on our hands, one of misunderstanding or misinterpretation of the license. To drag the communication process for this long, only for it to end up in courts, is sad.
While many of you might already have read the press release by now, here are some more details about the case and the bludgeoning bundle of blunder.
