Expert Says Cisco's iPhone violates GPL

Stony Stevenson writes "Even while Cisco Systems is suing Apple for violating its iPhone trademark, an open-source enthusiast is accusing Cisco itself of infringing copyright in the same product. From the article: "Cisco has not published the source code for some components of the WIP300 iPhone in accordance with its open-source licensing agreement, said Armijn Hemel, a consultant with Loohuis Consulting and half of the team running the GPL Violations Project, an organization that identifies and publicizes misuse of GPL licenses and takes some violators to court."

no suprise

[Lumpy]

It was like pulling teeth to get the wifi accesspoint/routers GPL code released a few years ago, this is standard operating proceedure by Cisco. I remember the foaming at the mouth all over slashdot about that.

Anyways the WIP300 sucks bad.

Oh Slashdot

[Anonymous Coward]

When Cisco sued Apple, there was no way Apple was guilty. And if they were guilty, it was ok because information wants to be free and we have a "right" to use other people's ideas without paying for them.

When an open-source "expert" announces that Cisco "might" have violated the GPL but has no court proceedings to back up his claim, Cisco needed to be fined trillions in punitive damages and be shut down.

Re:Big Company

[Whiney Mac Fanboy]

The iPhone trademark is what is at issue between Cisco and Apple. That has nothing to do with IP or Copyright,

Meh, Large companies would have you believe that Trademark, Trade Secrets, Copyright & Patents (along with other intangible or government granted monoopolies) all fall into the 'Intellectual Property' basket.

Oh, and I could have been referring to either Cisco or Apple with my comment. Apple's complained about people violating it's copyright/look'n'feel/whatever countless times. But seems to have absolutely no problem violating some small guy's copyright [virtuelvis.com]

Re:Of course

[gnasher719]

'' At the end of the day, the only way in which different cases of infringement are fungible is if opposed parties agree to trade suit cancellations. They could hammer Cisco as hard as they want and Cisco's position vis-a-vis Apple would (probably) not be affected at all. ''

The copyright holders could sell lets say 50 percent of their copyrights to Apple, which might be happy to pay a generous amount of money for them to have some ammunition against Cisco. The original copyright holders get a nice amount of money, they can still sue Cisco for copyright infringement, and Apple can do the same. The GPL status of the software wouldn't be affected. (If they sold _all_ copyrights to Apple, the software would be just as free, but only Apple could sue any GPL abusers, and of course Apple could build a non-free version itself).

Re:What an effing minefield

[robotninja]

The answer to this question depends on whether you choose the date the law was passed (October 19, 1976 ) or the date that it went into effect (January 1, 1978): US Copyright Act of 1976 [wikipedia.org].

Yes, I realize Cisco's suit is about trademark, and not copyright; however, Larry Lessig goes into great detail in most of his writings to explain why the complete redirection in copyright law in 1976 laid the groundwork for such backwards and insane laws as the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act [wikipedia.org] and of course, the notorious DMCA [wikipedia.org], among others.

Interestingly enough, as a law professor and lawyer, one of Lessig's proposed solutions is to "fire all the lawyers"...

Re:no suprise

[Anonymous Coward]

And the WIP300 is not an iPhone. Cisco's WIP300 is a product they have been shipping that on December 18, 2006 they decided to re-badge online (including uploading doctored pictures to Amzon.com) as being their "iPhone". The reason Cisco did this was to be able to point to this product as proof of using the iPhone trademark. Unfortunately for Cisco, they did not use the registered trademark for 5 years after having bought the trademark registration by buying NetGear. Cisco then missed the deadline for extending the trademark registration. The required by law extension application was finally submitted at the end of the 6 month grace period. Cisco's application falsely stated Cisco had been continuously using the trademark during the 5 years they were required to. Cisco also did not include a picture with the application, even though pictorial proof is required. Cisco finally, out of time, submitted a picture of an already-shipping product. The picture showed the back of the product box. The box had shrink wrap. Outside the shrinkwrap someone had affixed a single sticker with the word iPhone on it to the outside of the box. This was Cisco's proof of having used the trademark continuously. Since Cisco has not used the trademark continuously and continuous use is required by law to maintain a trademark, Cisco has lost its right to the iPhone trademark. Since Cisco falsified its extension application, thereby preventing those other entities wishing to use the mark from doing so, Cisco is no longer entitled to use the mark.

Apple's iPhone is the real iPhone. Cisco can go to hell.

not only iPhone

[ivlad]

Cisco has a line of Fibre Channel switches called Cisco MDS [cisco.com]. They are used for Storage Area Networks and provide FC, iSCSI and FCIP capabilities. The high-end series, 95xx, look pretty much like Catalysts 65xx (with FC interfaces, of course), and 92xx use 7200 chasis.

Those systems are povered by Linux, given, you have a SmartNet contract, you can download updates for them containing kernel with initd and rootfs. Moreover, by simply observing boot process, one can conclude, they are Linux-powered. However, Cisco doesn't provide a source code for them.

I've also heard (but this is not confirmed), that their main competitor in SAN market, Brocade, is also using Linux as a basis for their FabricOS. Did anyone checked that?