Software Freedom Law Center goes after Verizon over GPL

The Software Freedom Law Center on Friday said it has filed a suit against Verizon Communications alleging that it has violated the terms of the General Public License, which governs the use of thousands of free and open-source software products.

The suit is the fourth that the SFLC has filed on behalf of two programmers who wrote BusyBox, a software utility package covered under the GPL. BusyBox is typically embedded in hardware devices that use the Linux open-source operating system.

The move reflects a more aggressive stance that the SFLC, which provides legal counsel to free and open-source developers, has taken this year.

Verizon distributes a wireless router made by Actiontec Electronics to customers of its Fios fiber-optic broadband service.

The router uses the BusyBox software, and under terms of the GPL, Verizon has to make the source code available to people who use the device, according to the SFLC suit (PDF).

The first suit alleging misuse of the BusyBox software, which the SFLC filed in September of this year, was settled quickly. The SFLC also sued Xterasys and High-Gain Antennas in November.

[Penguinisto]

About time...

Maybe now Verizon will get a taste of their own medicine?

Or at least more likely, they'll finally start offering the source
code like they're required to do. Unlike most megacorps, the
FSF is at least pretty cool about not immediately filing a lawsuit
every time some other corp starts violating intellectual property
law.

/P

[Seaspray0]

Agreed

"Unlike most megacorps, the FSF is at least pretty cool about not immediately filing a lawsuit every time some other corp starts violating intellectual property law."

Yes, they are. And the terms of the lawsuit are generous IMHO.

[bdunne72]

FSF Not Involved; It's SFLC on BusyBox's Behalf

This case (and the others) has nothing to do with FSF. They've never brought a lawsuit. Rather, it's the Software Freedom Law Center, run by Eben Moglen, bringing this case (and the others) on behalf of BusyBox.

[FellowConspirator]

Maybe I can get a bug fixed...

Namely, the Actiontec devices won't let you NAT a port to the UDP
broadcast address (i.e., make a rule that forwards UDP on WAN port
9 to LAN 192.168.1.255 for broadcast). This means Wake-on-Lan
packets sent from the Internet cannot be used to wake a computer
on the LAN. Bad form, all around.

[chrisfrary]

It's too bad

It's too bad that Verizon will probably just discontinue after they loose this case.

[erikdev]

clogging the courts with worthless suits

This is almost certainly FUD.

busybox is basically a shell replacement used by tons of embedded appliances. It is a single program that can perform numerous things you'd usually see in /usr/bin, such as ls, cd, etc.

So there is no real reason to actually link proprietary code to busybox (or in any other way truly combine the programs together). And if you don't combine the programs then you aren't required to distribute your proprietary code. See the GPL FAQ:

http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html#MereAggregation

In an appliance that needs to invoke a shell function they'd probably exec() the busybox binary and have it do "ls" for example. There is no reason to link that directly into your appliance application. And if you read the GPL section I showed above that means that they aren't considered "combined" together. So Verizon shouldn't need to distribute their appliance's code. They only need to distribute the busybox code (if they changed it).

So it's probably FUD (f***ed up disinformation), and wasting my tax dollars to have a dumb lawsuit considered by an ignorant judge.

[mattflaschen]

Busybox Code

They need to distribute BusyBox's code (or a written offer for it) regardless of whether they modified it. That's what the lawsuit's about.

[Isshou]

Pure fluff lawsuit?

So are we setting the precedence for suing a company who redistributes, for free or at cost, a product that uses GPL? Should we sue BestBuy if they happened to sell a BusyBox router (which they do the Linksys WRT54G) for not providing the source code for BusyBox on their site? After all they are providing a copy of the software. Why would Verizon be differeny just because they provide the router when you sign up for a service? Or, as I found out, is it because they have a firmware downloadable for the specific router...

The router in question is an ActionTec MI424WR, which looking at ActionTec's site (who MUST comply with GPL license) does indeed provide the source code: http://opensource.actiontec.com/index.html

This router is not required for being able to use Verizon's FiOS internet service, you can replace it with any WAN router, you may need to wait for the MAC address to reset or need to mask the routers MAC address with the one associated with your FiOS connection. If anything is a result of this lawsuit, Verizon will chuck the ActionTec for a lesses quality router to bundle that doesn't use any GPL software.

If Verizon's lawyers lose this lawsuit, they deserve to lose it and should fire their lawyers.

Of course actually looking into the filing... It's not that Verizon must provide source code, it's that they provide the firmware update on their own site rather than force people to go to actiontec's site for a firmware update, not the distribution of the router itself, which this article never says.