GPL lawsuit may be settled out of court

Monsoon Multimedia and the Software Freedom Law Center are discussing a settlement regarding Monsoon's open source licensing violation, but a deal isn't certain.

"Simply coming into compliance now is not sufficient to settle the matter, because that would mean anyone can violate the license until caught, because the only punishment would be to come into compliance," said Dan Ravicher, SFLC's legal director, in a statement. He confirmed that the parties are in settlement discussions but said an agreement hasn't yet been reached.

In a statement, Monsoon said that it has always intended to comply with the licensing requirements and expects to do so within the next couple of weeks.

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Monsoon Multimedia and the Software Freedom Law Center are discussing a settlement regarding Monsoon's open source licensing violation, but a deal isn't certain.

"Simply coming into compliance now is not sufficient to settle the matter, because that would mean anyone can violate the license until caught, because the only punishment would be to come into compliance," said Dan Ravicher, SFLC's legal director, in a statement. He confirmed that the parties are in settlement discussions but said an agreement hasn't yet been reached.

In a statement, Monsoon said that it has always intended to comply with the licensing requirements and expects to do so within the next couple of weeks.

Last week, the SFLC filed a lawsuit against Monsoon on behalf of two of the creators of BusyBox, a lightweight set of Unix utilities used in embedded systems. BusyBox claims that even after repeated requests, Monsoon failed to publish its source code. Monsoon uses BusyBox under the GNU General Public License Version 2, which requires distributors of software that uses the licensed software to make their source code available. Failing to do so is considered copyright infringement.

The SFLC said this is the first case they know of filed in the United States to enforce an open source license. It is being closely watched as a test of the legal strength of GPL2.

If the case goes to trial, the key decision will be whether the court decides that GPL2 is a license or a contract, said James Gatto, a lawyer who leads the open source team at Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman, which is based in New York and is not involved in the lawsuit.

The IDG News Service is a Network World affiliate.