Cisco pledges to comply with licenses if FSF dismisses the lawsuit

It was announced that Cisco Systems would be appointing a director to ensure Linksys products comply with the terms of free software licenses in return for the Free Software Foundation (FSF) dismissing its lawsuit against the company. 

Moreover, Cisco is willing to make an undisclosed contribution to the foundation and has agreed to notify Linksys users of their rights under appropriate licenses. The director to be appointed will be required to report to the foundation regarding Cisco's compliance efforts. 

The deal is aimed at ending the process that began in 2003. Back then the FSF had started looking into complaints of Linksys WRT54G wireless router users about them not receiving all the source code that they were entitled to under the terms that Cisco had licensed the software. 

The foundation says it tried to cooperate with Cisco to ensure the proper disclosures. However, late last year the foundation announced that Cisco was unwilling to take the necessary steps towards compliance, and the FSF filed a copyright infringement lawsuit suit against the company.

It should also be stated that it isn’t the first time Cisco was discovered to have failed to comply with open source licenses.