SFC reports a successful (L)GPL suit in Germany

The Software Freedom Conservancy is reportingthat AVM has released the full source and installation scripts for itsrouters in response to a lawsuit, filed by Sebastian Steck, based on LesserGNU Public License rights.

Historically, lawsuits have focused on the copyrights licensedunder GPL (or the GPL and LGPL together). Steck's lawsuit uniquelyfocused exclusively on users' rights under the LGPL. Steck's workshowed that despite being a "Lesser" license than GPL, LGPLv2.1still guarantees users the right to repair, modify and reinstallmodified versions of the software on their device. There is now nodoubt that both GPL and LGPL mandate the device owner's ability tomake changes to the software in the flash memory so those changespersist across reboots.