Hava-maker Monsoon slapped with first GPL lawsuit
It looks like the open source community is about to head into some uncharted waters, with the first GPL-related lawsuit in the US now headed to court. At the center of this particular brouhaha is Hava-maker Monsoon Multimedia, who is being sued by the Software Freedom Law Center for alleged violations of the GNU General Public License (GPL). In particular, the SFLC says that Monsoon licensed the BusyBox software for embedded applications from its clients, yet failed to provide the underlying source code to its products in return, which is required under the GPLv2. Adding a bit more interest to the case, as Linux-Watch points out, is the fact that Monsoon is headed by a "highly experienced" lawyer named Graham Radstone, who apparently previously held the top legal spot at an unnamed "$1 billion private multinational company." For its part, the SFLC is seeking an injunction against Monsoon, and is asking for damages and litigation costs to be awarded to the plaintiffs. [Via Slashdot]
Filed under: Misc. Gadgets
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
anderesp @ Sep 21st 2007 11:23AM
i had to read this 5 times over to get the
acroynms together.... geeeeze.
Sean @ Sep 21st 2007 12:35PM
This post = day late.
Paul @ Sep 21st 2007 12:45PM
*sigh*
Nothing to see here folks just another blog troll, a close relative to the cave troll, just slightly less intelligent and more vocal.
Sean @ Sep 21st 2007 12:53PM
No, not trying to troll, sorry if you felt I was.
But I already saw like 4 posts Yesterday morning about this. It seemed strange to me considering how Engadget is usually on top of things.
Todd @ Sep 21st 2007 12:47PM
Wait until the EU cracks open Microsoft Windows and out spills, like a pinata, thousands of pieces of open source inside. That lawsuit will be in the trillions of dollars. :)
http://www.engadget.com/2007/09/17/eu-ruling-on-microsoft-antitrust-appeal-bad-news-for-microsoft/
stephenbratz2 @ Sep 21st 2007 1:34PM
Proof? Or are you just making things up like the typical OSS fan who will do anything possible to discredit Microsoft by lying? Now when some other group (SCO) makes those same accusations against Linux, the whole OSS community is having a fit. But it is perfectly fine for the Linux community to make the same claims against Microsoft? That's right, the OSS community does not need to play by the same rules. Microsoft sues somebody, and they are evil. OSS fans can copy MS software because software wants to be free, and how dare they charge for it? But anybody does anything against the almighty GPL, then that is the greatest offence against humanity.
oshean @ Sep 21st 2007 4:54PM
All GNUs is good GNUs.
Typhoid Mary @ Sep 22nd 2007 2:13AM
ROFL!
Another Great Space Coaster fan :)
tekdroid @ Sep 22nd 2007 12:02PM
that gpl logo screams hightech.
sherryfriedrichs @ Sep 23rd 2007 1:57AM
This is a great way to get the info out to people who may not know about it... maybe they'll have to pay millions, maybe not, but it's getting a lot of press/exposure because it's newsworthy not advertising, so maybe people just might try it out. ie You won't watch/read an ad, but you'll read this.
Gary @ Sep 26th 2007 2:34AM
Monsoon slaps Busybox source code on download site.
http://myhava.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=874