The Free Software Foundation (FSF) has filed its first-ever copyright infringement lawsuit, accusing networking giant Cisco of refusing to distribute GPL’d source code embedded as firmware or used in router products sold under Cisco’s “Linkys” brand. In court papers filed in U.S. District Court in Manhattan, the FSF claims Cisco's Linksys routers violate terms of the GNU General Public License, version 2, and the GNU Lesser General Public License. The FSF says that for five years, Cisco has distributed GPL-licensed software while refusing FSF’s requests that it provide its customers with the corresponding source code. The lawsuit represents a new tactic for the FSF – underscoring its determination to enforce FOSS licenses in court when jawboning alone will not do. Cisco is its first target, and its a big one. "Free software developers entrust their copyrights to the FSF so we can make sure that their work is always redistributed in ways that respect user freedom," Peter Brown, executive director of the FSF, told Information Week.

"In the fifteen years we've spent enforcing our licenses, we've never gone to court before. We have always managed to get the companies we have worked with to take their obligations seriously. But at the end of the day, we're also willing to take the legal action necessary to ensure users have the rights that our licenses guarantee."

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