The Software Freedom Law Center (SFLC) today announced that it has filed two more copyright infringement lawsuits on behalf of its clients, two principal developers of BusyBox, alleging violation of the GNU General Public License (GPL). The defendants in the lawsuits are Xterasys Corporation and High-Gain Antennas, LLC.

The Software Freedom Law Center (SFLC) today announced that it has filed two more copyright infringement lawsuits, on behalf of two principal developers of BusyBox, alleging violation of the GNU General Public License (GPL). The defendants in this new round of lawsuits are Bell Microproducts, Inc. and Super Micro Computer, Inc.

Bruce Perens, former Debian project leader and co-founder of the Open Source Initiative, has been critical of the most recent GPL infringement lawsuits filed by the Software Freedom Law Center (SFLC). On behalf of several BusyBox developers, the SFLC sued 14 vendors over devices running embedded Linux and including the BusyBox tool. Perens is the author of the first few versions of BusyBox.

The Software Freedom Law Center has filed two more GPL infringement lawsuits on behalf of an open-source software project. The second-ever GPL lawsuit alleges that Xterasys and High-Gan Antennas failed to honor "source-code transparency," in violation of Busybox's GPLv2 license.

Companies that use open-source source software to make money may have to reexamine their practices because of the real possibility of litigation and changes in the new version of the most popular open-source license, Edmund J. Walsh of the Boston IP law firm Wolf, Greenfield & Sacks, P.C., writes in the April issue of IP Law & Business.

I am the creator of the Busybox program which is currently subject to lawsuits brought by Mr. Erik Andersen and the Software Freedom Law Center, and which was subject to previous suits brought by SFLC, Mr. Andersen and Mr. Robert Landley.

The Software Freedom Law Center (SFLC) today announced that agreements have been reached to dismiss the GPL enforcement lawsuit filed by SFLC against Verizon Communications Inc. on behalf of two principal developers of BusyBox. Verizon distributes BusyBox to its FiOS customers in devices that are provided to Verizon by Actiontec Electronics, Inc.

Earlier this week, the latest round of BusyBox GPL lawsuits were announced by the SFLC. The current offenders are Best Buy, JVC, Samsung, Westinghouse and 10 others. It seems that every few months, there are a new round of violations or lawsuits announced, so it behooves every company that distributes software or products containing software to ensure they aren't ever on the list.

Business software maker Red Hat Inc said on Wednesday that it has settled two of three pending patent lawsuits that the company has been fighting.