List of free software lawsuits

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 1992-1993

"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 BSDs distribution, each tuned to their own specific audiences, strengths and markets.

SCO-Linux controversies 2004-2008

* SCO and SGI
* SCO v. IBM
* Red Hat v. SCO
* SCO v. DaimlerChrysler
* SCO v. AutoZone
* SCO v. Novell

BusyBox 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 [ [http://www.softwarefreedom.org/news/2007/sep/20/busybox/ On Behalf of BusyBox Developers, SFLC Files First Ever U.S. GPL Violation Lawsuit] (Software Freedom Law Center 20 September 2007)] , 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 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. [ [http://www.linux.com/feature/120629 Settlement reached in Busybox-Monsoon GPL case] (Bruce Byfield, Linux.com, 30 October 2007)]

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. [ [http://news.zdnet.co.uk/software/0,1000000121,39290971,00.htm Linux legal team sues over GPL violations] (Martin LaMonica, CNET News.com, 21 November 2007)] [ [http://www.softwarefreedom.org/news/2007/nov/20/busybox/ SFLC press release] ] The Xterasys case was settled on December 17 for release of source code used and an undisclosed payment, [ [http://www.softwarefreedom.org/news/2007/dec/17/busybox-xterasys-settlement/ SFLC press release] ] and the High-Gain Antennas case on March 6, 2008 for active license compliance and an undisclosed payment. [ [http://www.softwarefreedom.org/news/2008/mar/06/busybox-hga/ BusyBox Developers and High-Gain Antennas Agree to Dismiss GPL Lawsuit] (SFLC press release)] ] On 7 December 2007, a case was brought against Verizon Communications over its distribution of firmware for Actiontec routers that it distributes; [ [http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&taxonomyName=development&articleId=9051799&taxonomyId=11&intsrc=kc_top Open-source legal group strikes again on BusyBox, suing Verizon] (Grant Gross, "Computerworld", Dec 7 2007)] [ [http://www.softwarefreedom.org/news/2007/dec/07/busybox/ SFLC press release] ] this case was settled March 17, 2008. [ [http://www.informationweek.com/news/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=206904096&subSection=News Verizon Settles Open Source Software Lawsuit] (Paul McDougell, "InformationWeek", March 17, 2008)]

References