List of free software lawsuits
Encyclopedia
Free Software
is software which has been licensed for distribution under certain licenses. These allow the software to be freely copy subject to certain restrictions. There have been a number of court cases where various parties have tried to copy the code without complying with the restrictions or where parties have sought to restrict or limit free copying of the code.
USL v. BSDi
USL v. BSDi was a lawsuit
brought in the United States in 1992 by Unix System Laboratories
against Berkeley Software Design
, Inc and the Regents of the University of California
over intellectual property
(IP) related to UNIX
. The case was settled out of court in 1993 after the judge expressed doubt in the validity of USL's IP, with USL and BSDi agreeing not to litigate further over the Berkeley Software Distribution
(BSD), which would later develop into a range of BSD distributions
, each tuned to their own specific audiences, strengths and markets.
SCO-Linux controversies
BusyBox
What was claimed to be the first US lawsuit over a GPL violation concerned use of BusyBox in an embedded device. The lawsuit, case 07-CV-8205 in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York was filed on 20 September 2007 by the Software Freedom Law Center
on behalf of BusyBox developers Andersen and Landley against Monsoon Multimedia Inc., after BusyBox code was discovered in a firmware
upgrade and attempts to contact the company had apparently failed. The case was settled with release of the Monsoon version of the source and payment of an undisclosed amount of money to Andersen and Landley.
On 21 November 2007, the SFLC brought two other lawsuits on behalf of Andersen and Landley against two more companies, Xterasys (case 07-CV-10456) and High-Gain Antennas (case 07-CV-10455), for similar alleged GPL violations concerning BusyBox code. The Xterasys case was settled on December 17 for release of source code used and an undisclosed payment, and the High-Gain Antennas case on March 6, 2008 for active license compliance and an undisclosed payment. On 7 December 2007, a case was brought against Verizon Communications
over its distribution of firmware for Actiontec routers that it distributes; this case was settled March 17, 2008.
Free software
Free software, software libre or libre software is software that can be used, studied, and modified without restriction, and which can be copied and redistributed in modified or unmodified form either without restriction, or with restrictions that only ensure that further recipients can also do...
is software which has been licensed for distribution under certain licenses. These allow the software to be freely copy subject to certain restrictions. There have been a number of court cases where various parties have tried to copy the code without complying with the restrictions or where parties have sought to restrict or limit free copying of the code.
USL v. BSDiUSL v. BSDiUSL v. BSDi was a lawsuit brought in the United States in 1992 by Unix System Laboratories against Berkeley Software Design, Inc and the Regents of the University of California over intellectual property related to UNIX...
1992-1993
USL v. BSDi was a lawsuitLawsuit
A lawsuit or "suit in law" is a civil action brought in a court of law in which a plaintiff, a party who claims to have incurred loss as a result of a defendant's actions, demands a legal or equitable remedy. The defendant is required to respond to the plaintiff's complaint...
brought in the United States in 1992 by Unix System Laboratories
Unix System Laboratories
Unix System Laboratories was originally organized as part of Bell Labs in 1989. USL joined with the UNIX Software Operation, also a Bell Laboratories division, in 1990. It assumed responsibility for Unix development and licensing activities...
against Berkeley Software Design
Berkeley Software Design
Berkeley Software Design Inc. was a corporation which developed, sold licenses for, and supported BSD/OS , a commercial and partially proprietary variant of the BSD Unix operating system for PC compatible computer systems...
, Inc and the Regents of the University of California
Regents of the University of California
The Regents of the University of California make up the governing board of the University of California. The Board has 26 full members:* The majority are appointed by the Governor of California for 12-year terms....
over intellectual property
Intellectual property
Intellectual property is a term referring to a number of distinct types of creations of the mind for which a set of exclusive rights are recognized—and the corresponding fields of law...
(IP) related to UNIX
Unix
Unix is a multitasking, multi-user computer operating system originally developed in 1969 by a group of AT&T employees at Bell Labs, including Ken Thompson, Dennis Ritchie, Brian Kernighan, Douglas McIlroy, and Joe Ossanna...
. The case was settled out of court in 1993 after the judge expressed doubt in the validity of USL's IP, with USL and BSDi agreeing not to litigate further over the Berkeley Software Distribution
Berkeley Software Distribution
Berkeley Software Distribution is a Unix operating system derivative developed and distributed by the Computer Systems Research Group of the University of California, Berkeley, from 1977 to 1995...
(BSD), which would later develop into a range of BSD distributions
Comparison of BSD operating systems
There are a number of Unix-like operating systems based on or descended from the Berkeley Software Distribution series of Unix variants. The three most notable descendants in current use are FreeBSD, OpenBSD, and NetBSD, which are all derived from 386BSD and 4.4BSD-Lite, by various routes...
, each tuned to their own specific audiences, strengths and markets.
SCO-Linux controversiesSCO-Linux controversiesThe SCO-Linux controversies are a series of legal and public disputes between the software company SCO Group and various Linux vendors and users. The SCO Group alleges that its license agreements with IBM means that source code that IBM wrote and donated to be incorporated into Linux was added in...
2004-2008
- SCO and SGISCO and SGIDuring the SCO Forum 2003, The SCO Group showed several alleged examples of illegal copying of copyrighted code in Linux. The open source community quickly debunked most of the examples shown, but one example showed that code from Unix was indeed used in some of SGI's Linux contributions...
- SCO v. IBMSCO v. IBMSCO v. IBM is a civil lawsuit in the United States District Court of Utah. The SCO Group asserted that there are legal uncertainties regarding the use of the Linux operating system due to alleged violations of IBM's Unix licenses in the development of Linux code at IBM.-Summary:On March 6, 2003,...
- Red Hat v. SCORed Hat v. SCOThe Red Hat v. SCO lawsuit - Red Hat filed suit against The SCO Group on August 4, 2003. Red Hat is asking for a permanent injunction against SCO's Linux campaign and a number of declaratory judgments that Red Hat has not violated SCO's copyrights....
- SCO v. DaimlerChryslerSCO v. DaimlerChryslerThe SCO Group v. DaimlerChrysler was a lawsuit filed in the United States, in the state of Michigan. In December 2003, SCO sent a number of letters to Unix licensees. In these letters, SCO demanded that the licensees certify certain things regarding their usage of Linux. DaimlerChrysler, a former...
- SCO v. AutoZone
- SCO v. NovellSCO v. NovellSCO v. Novell was a United States lawsuit in which the The SCO Group claimed ownership of the source code for the Unix operating system, including portions of Linux...
BusyBoxBusyBoxBusyBox provides several stripped-down Unix tools in a single executable. It runs in a variety of POSIX environments such as Linux, Android, FreeBSD and others, such as proprietary kernels, although many of the tools it provides are designed to work with interfaces provided by the Linux kernel. It...
versus various people 2007-2008
What was claimed to be the first US lawsuit over a GPL violation concerned use of BusyBox in an embedded device. The lawsuit, case 07-CV-8205 in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York was filed on 20 September 2007 by the Software Freedom Law CenterSoftware Freedom Law Center
The Software Freedom Law Center is an organization that provides pro bono legal representation and related services to not-for-profit developers of free software/open source software. It was launched in February 2005 with Eben Moglen as Chairman. Initial funding of US$4 million was pledged by...
on behalf of BusyBox developers Andersen and Landley against Monsoon Multimedia Inc., after BusyBox code was discovered in a firmware
Firmware
In electronic systems and computing, firmware is a term often used to denote the fixed, usually rather small, programs and/or data structures that internally control various electronic devices...
upgrade and attempts to contact the company had apparently failed. The case was settled with release of the Monsoon version of the source and payment of an undisclosed amount of money to Andersen and Landley.
On 21 November 2007, the SFLC brought two other lawsuits on behalf of Andersen and Landley against two more companies, Xterasys (case 07-CV-10456) and High-Gain Antennas (case 07-CV-10455), for similar alleged GPL violations concerning BusyBox code. The Xterasys case was settled on December 17 for release of source code used and an undisclosed payment, and the High-Gain Antennas case on March 6, 2008 for active license compliance and an undisclosed payment. On 7 December 2007, a case was brought against Verizon Communications
Verizon Communications
Verizon Communications Inc. is a global broadband and telecommunications company and a component of the Dow Jones Industrial Average...
over its distribution of firmware for Actiontec routers that it distributes; this case was settled March 17, 2008.