Free software may sound like a joke if you're used to making big money from writing important programs. But it's no laughing matter -- and the open-source movement just got the last laugh against one of the biggest names in technology.
Cisco Systems
Years of bantering turned into a brief courtroom kerfuffle, and now Cisco has settled the matter with the Free Software Foundation (FSF). A new director to oversee free software concerns at Linksys will have to touch base with the FSF on a regular basis, making sure that everything is on the up-and-up. Cisco will give an undisclosed sum of money to the FSF for its legal troubles, and the Foundation has dismissed the lawsuit.
This is a show of strength for the open-source community in general, and the GPL licensing model in particular. Verizon
Victories like these should make other companies sit up and take notice. It's becoming clear that American courts seem to respect the terms of the GPL, and that it's not OK to ship out Linux-based products without the proper documentation. That's potentially good news for companies like SourceForge, which helps users and businesses track and share their code -- and licenses.
On the flipside, Wind River Systems
The Microsoft
Further Foolishness in the foothills of the frontier: