Settlement Reached in Verizon GPL Violation Suit

eldavojohn writes "A settlement has been reached in the Verizon GPLv2 violation suit. The now famous BusyBox developers, Erick Andersen and Rob Landley, will receive an undisclosed sum from subcontractor Actiontec Electronics. 'Actiontec supplied Verizon with wireless routers for its FiOS broadband service that use an open source program called BusyBox. BusyBox developers Andersen and Landley in December sued Verizon -- claiming that the usage violated terms of version 2 of the GNU General Public License.'"

Re:Now that they have the money..

[corsec67]

How is this different from a pantent troll? Create a program, GPL it, wait for some company to use it, and sue?

Except in this case the license is *right there* in the code they used. Also, they weren't prevented from writing something functionally similar to BusyBox.

Basically, Patents != Copyrights.

IP is "Imaginary Property" that doesn't actually exist or have any laws on it.

Re:Now that they have the money..

[adpe]

The difference is that these people actually put a lot of time and thought into *creating* something. They deserve all kinds of protection by law. A patent troll merely patents some obvious idea and sits there, but never creates anything.

Huge difference.

Re:I'm a little disappointed . . .

[palegray.net]

I agree that it's somewhat disappointing that they settled when you consider it as a lost opportunity to test the GPL in court, but hopefully the developers well *well* compensated for their trouble. Perhaps they'll donate a portion of their settlement proceeds to helping others fight these cases. How many "little guys" are out there who might have legitimate infringement claims, but are too scared or too broke to stand up to the legal muscle of a large corporation?

On a separate note, I just had to Digg [digg.com] this one. The more ways the news can get out about this, the better off the community as a whole is, and it increases visibility for the validity of the GPL. After all, if the case had no merit, why would a megacorp like Verizon settle? These stories need more exposure.

Actually the software was free

[Belial6]

Actually the software was free. The expensive part was hording the source code. So, the correct statement is "That was pretty expensive hording."

Re:WOW

[QuantumG]

oholoh.net estimates [ohloh.net] the cost of developing the software at $2,446,697.

Re:I'm a little disappointed . . .

[palegray.net]

The lawsuit was "Erik Andersen and Rob Landley v. Verizon Communications Inc.", "case number 1:07-cv-11070-LTS, was filed December 6th, 2007, in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York". Actiontec may be paying an unspecified amount as part of the conditions of settlement, but don't think for a moment Verizon is guiltless in this matter. As they were engaging in the distribution of the infringing devices with Actiontec, they were certainly 50% responsible. If Verizon had thought they had any chance of winning the case, I guarantee you they would have dragged it out as far as possible. This settlement isn't as good as a jury endorsement of the GPL's validity, but it's pretty damn good nonetheless.

Re:Andersen and Landley - You don't have copyright

[QuantumG]

You mean like this one?

http://www.ohloh.net/projects/4929/contributors [ohloh.net]

Re:It's just business

[CustomDesigned]

They did not need to publish their proprietary code unless they linked to or incorporated busybox. Merely having busybox executables in the same system is "mere aggregation", and only required that they offer to distribute busybox code, not their own. So that payment was not necessary to keep Verizon code closed. It was necessary because they violated the license.

Re:Victory

[fishbowl]

>looks to me like Verizon never saw the original code. They contracted out for routers. They didn't make the
>routers themselves.

Reasonable defense for a delay in action, but irrelevant. The company was properly notified and responded to
the notice with hostile refusal to comply.

After being given notice by a copyright holder, you can't introduce your ignorance defense.

And technically, the presence of the word "copyright", the circle-C symbol, the author's name, and
the date, constitute "notice".

In any case, they were notified of the violation, and it was their refusal to comply with the license that triggered the lawsuit in the first place. And you just can't play that "ignorance" card in court, when the snail mail exchange between your lawyers is on the evidence table :-)

Re:Andersen and Landley - You don't have copyright

[Dr. Zowie]

It's called, "Sour Grapes".

Actually, no, it's not. The phrase "Sour Grapes" refers to one of Aesop's Fables, in which a Fox, unable to get his mitts on some nice, juicy grapes, grumbles that the grapes look sour. You've used a false analogy, because Diesel Dave isn't speculating that the reward wasn't worthwhile (sour). He's pissed off because he wasn't able to enjoy any himself, and therefore doesn't want Anderson and Landley to enjoy their winnings. That's more like the Dog in the Manger, a story about those who begrudge others the things that they can't enjoy themselves.

Due. Dilligence

[Anonymous Coward]

Please remember also that Verizon were told by the Busybox developers what they'd done and Verizon rather than investigate the claims and mitigate them, they decided to deny the allegations.

Re:I'm a little disappointed . . .

[Anonymous Coward]

And exactly how was Verison supposed to know that? From the details that I have read, Verison is blameless. It's called 'due diligence' and 'contractual law'. If you use a third party's contribution to your sale, you are responsible for ensuring that that third party's contributions are legitimate. You must do due diligence on what you are outsourcing, and have a contract between you and the third party to make clear rights, responsibilities and liabilities. If you don't, then you are liable. It is all part of doing business professionally. In this case, the 'you' is Verizon.