The GPL Wins Again

“In December 2009, the Software Freedom Conservancy filed
lawsuits against 14 consumer electronics vendors alleging that they
were not in compliance with the GPL license. Of those 14 vendors,
13 have now either settled amicably or are in productive
discussions toward a settlement.

“In one case, consumer electronics vendor Westinghouse failed to
comply, and a U.S. District Court has now ruled in a default
judgment against it.

“The open source GPL license is widely used and requires
distributors to ensure that the code remains open and distributed
with the products that use the code. Westinghouse includes the
BusyBox GPL-licensed code as part of its HDTVs, and does not
provide users with access to the GPL code. The court ruled that
Westinghouse did not comply with its discovery obligations.

“”I was glad Conservancy received the default judgment, but I
was not surprised. I think the facts are quite clear,” Bradley M.
Kuhn, president of the Software Freedom Conservancy, told
InternetNews.com. “Usually, anytime I do GPL enforcement for
BusyBox the facts are never in dispute. The typical situation is
that a firmware is distributed on the device that clearly contains
BusyBox and no source nor offer for source code is included. So it
was with Westinghouse.”

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