No, the FSF hasn't gone to court before. [LWN.net]

No, the FSF hasn't gone to court before.

Posted Dec 12, 2008 22:14 UTC (Fri) by merriam (guest, #474)
In reply to: The FSF raises the stakes for Cisco by flewellyn
Parent article: The FSF raises the stakes for Cisco

In the fifteen years we've spent enforcing our licenses, we've never gone to court before.

-- Peter Brown, executive director of the FSF

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No, the FSF hasn't gone to court before.

Posted Dec 12, 2008 22:34 UTC (Fri) by tialaramex (subscriber, #21167) [Link] (3 responses)

Mmm, but that might actually still be true next time, right?

If Cisco responds by fixing the things the FSF complains about, and offers the FSF a modest donation in exchange for dropping the suit, it will, and then once again the FSF has "never gone to court"

Or is that intended as a stronger assertion that they've never sued anyone?

No, the FSF hasn't gone to court before.

Posted Dec 12, 2008 23:00 UTC (Fri) by johill (subscriber, #25196) [Link]

Heh. Maybe they dropped off the letter in person, in which case they would have gone to the court? ;)

more precisely

Posted Dec 12, 2008 23:41 UTC (Fri) by merriam (guest, #474) [Link] (1 responses)

It's the first time we've ever filed suit in a compliance case.

-- Brett Smith, Licensing Compliance Engineer, Free Software Foundation

Brett Smith's statement, no longer available at technocrat.net

Posted Dec 30, 2008 3:19 UTC (Tue) by merriam (guest, #474) [Link]

From: Brett Smith <brett@fsf.org>
To: gnu-prog@gnu.org
Subject: FSF Files Suit Against Cisco For GPL Violations
Date: Thu, 11 Dec 2008 12:40:44 -0500 (09:40 PST)

Hello GNU Maintainers,

You might have seen the press release go out over one of our other
mailing lists, but I wanted to be sure that all of you saw this. This
morning the FSF filed suit against Cisco for violating the GPL and the
LGPL. To make sure everyone understands what's going on and why we did
this, we've put out a press release[1], a blog post with more background
information about the case[2], and if you want, you can even read a
complete copy of the complaint[3].

[1] http://www.fsf.org/news/2008-12-cisco-suit
[2] http://www.fsf.org/blogs/licensing/2008-12-cisco-complaint
[3] http://www.fsf.org/licensing/complaint-2008-12-11.pdf

This isn't a choice we made lightly. It's the first time we've ever
filed suit in a compliance case. But ultimately we felt this was the
best way to make sure that Cisco fulfills its license obligations going
forward.

This shouldn't have any impact on the work you do as GNU maintainers;
since we're the copyright holders for the software in question, all the
work's on us. I just wanted to give you a heads-up. If you all have
any questions about this case, please feel free to contact me.

Best regards,

--
Brett Smith
Licensing Compliance Engineer, Free Software Foundation

--
http://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/gnu-prog