BusyBox developers, Andersen and Rob Landley, have reached a court settlement with Xterasys, the networking device manufacturer.

 

Andersen and Rob Landley had alleged that Xterasys violated the free and open-source license. According to the duo, Xterasys used BusyBox — a set of tools that allows software to operate in resource-constrained environments — in its products, but did not make the source code available.

 

Busybox is a collection of utilities regulated by the General Public License (GPL). The GPL requires vendors who use open source software licensed under it to make the software’s source code available to the end users.

 

Xterasys has agreed to pay Erik Andersen and Rob Landley an undisclosed sum. In addition, the company has also agreed to comply with the product’s license terms and appoint an internal “open source compliance officer,”

 

“As a result of the settlement, Xterasys has agreed to cease all binary distribution of BusyBox until SFLC confirms it has published complete corresponding source code on its Web site. Once SFLC verifies that the complete source code is available, Xterasys’ full rights to distribute BusyBox under the GPL will be reinstated,” Software Freedom Law Center (SFLC), an advocacy group representing the Busybox developers, said in a statement on Monday.

 

Along with appointing an “open-source compliance officer,” SFLC said, Xterasys also has to notify those who may have received the Busybox software from Xterasys of their GPL-granted rights.

 

According to InformationWeek, the latest settlement is significant, as many commercial users of open source software are hesitant to distribute source code to customers because they are concerned that they might tamper with the security or copyright protection features in their products. Earlier this year, DVR maker Tivo had stated that it may discontinue use of open source software due to such concerns.

 

The Software Freedom Law Center has reportedly filed three other lawsuits on behalf of Andersen and Landley claiming improper use of BusyBox. One was settled, while the other two are still pending.

 

Earlier this month, The SFLC filed a copyright infringement lawsuit against Verizon (News - Alert) Communications on behalf of the developers, alleging that Verizon has violated the GNU GPLv2 in its fiber-optic Internet and television service, the FiOS (News - Alert).