German Router Maker is Latest Company to Inadvertently Clarify the LGPL License

NotSanguine writes:

According to Ars Technica:

The GNU General Public License (GPL) and its "Lesser" version (LGPL) are widely known and used. Still, every so often, a networking hardware maker has to get sued to make sure everyone knows how it works.

The latest such router company to face legal repercussions is AVM, the Berlin-based maker of the most popular home networking products in Germany. Sebastian Steck, a German software developer, bought an AVM Fritz!Box 4020 (PDF) and, being a certain type, requested the source code that had been used to generate certain versions of the firmware on it.

According to Steck's complaint (translated to English and provided in PDF by the Software Freedom Conservancy, or SFC), he needed this code to recompile a networking library and add some logging to "determine which programs on the Fritz!Box establish connections to servers on the Internet and which data they send." But Steck was also concerned about AVM's adherence to GPL 2.0 and LGPL 2.1 licenses, under which its FRITZ!OS and various libraries were licensed. The SFC states that it provided a grant to Steck to pursue the matter.

AVM provided source code, but it was incomplete, as "the scripts for compilation and installation were missing," according to Steck's complaint. This included makefiles and details on environment variables, like "KERNEL_LAYOUT," necessary for compilation. Steck notified AVM, AVM did not respond, and Steck sought legal assistance, ultimately including the SFC.

Months later, according to the SFC, AVM provided all the relevant source code and scripts, but the suit continued. AVM ultimately paid Steck's attorney fee. The case proved, once again, that not only are source code requirements real, but the LGPL also demands freedom, despite its "Lesser" name, and that source code needs to be useful in making real changes to firmware-in German courts, at least.
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Lawsuits as necessary lockpicks

Are "copyleft" lawsuits against router and other networking hardware makers common? Just check the Free Software Foundation (FSF) Europe's wiki list of GPL lawsuits and negotiations. Many or most of them involve networking gear that made ample use of free source code and then failed to pay it back in offering the same to others.

At the top is perhaps the best-known case in tech circles, the Linksys WRT54G conflict from 2003. While the matter was settled before a lawsuit was filed, negotiations between Linksys owner Cisco and a coalition led by the Free Software Foundation, publisher of the GPL and LGPL, made history. It resulted in the release of all the modified and relevant GPL source code used in its hugely popular blue-and-black router.

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