“On June 21st a legal case will be heard before the District
Court of Berlin which may have enormous consequences for the way
that software is developed and distributed. The adversaries in the
case are the manufacturer and distributor of DSL routers AVM
Computersysteme Vertriebs GmbH (AVM), and Cybits AG (Cybits) which
produces children’s web-filtering software. Both companies use the
Linux kernel, which is licensed under the GNU General Public
License, version 2 (GNU GPL); a Free Software license permitting
everyone to use, study, share, and improve works which use it.The case was brought to court by AVM with the aim of preventing
Cybits from changing any parts of the firmware used in AVM’s
routers, including the Linux kernel. The Free Software Foundation
Europe (FSFE) and gpl-violations.org consider AVM’s action as a
broad attack against the principles of Free Software, and thus
against the thousands of individuals and companies developing,
improving and distributing Free Software.”
Web Webster has more than 20 years of writing and editorial experience in the tech sector. He’s written and edited news, demand generation, user-focused, and thought leadership content for business software solutions, consumer tech, and Linux Today, he edits and writes for a portfolio of tech industry news and analysis websites including webopedia.com, and DatabaseJournal.com.
LinuxToday is a trusted, contributor-driven news resource supporting all types of Linux users. Our thriving international community engages with us through social media and frequent content contributions aimed at solving problems ranging from personal computing to enterprise-level IT operations. LinuxToday serves as a home for a community that struggles to find comparable information elsewhere on the web.
Property of TechnologyAdvice. © 2025 TechnologyAdvice. All Rights Reserved
Advertiser Disclosure: Some of the products that appear on this site are from companies from which TechnologyAdvice receives compensation. This compensation may impact how and where products appear on this site including, for example, the order in which they appear. TechnologyAdvice does not include all companies or all types of products available in the marketplace.