Harald Welte, founder of the gpl-violations.org project,
announced earlier this month that a German District Court had
granted a preliminary injunction against Fortinet UK Ltd after the
project sued, alleging that the security software firm had used GPL
software in certain products and then used encryption technologies
to hide the software.
The GPL is a licence commonly used for many free software
projects, including the Linux operating system kernel. The GPL
licenses software free of cost but requires any re-distributor to
provide the full source code and a copy of the full licence
text.
"This violation by Fortinet is especially egregious since the
vendor not only violated the GPL, but actively tried to hide that
violation," said Welte.
"We are not in any way opposed to the commercial use of Free and
Open Source Software and there is no legal risk of using GPL
licensed software in commercial products. But vendors have to
comply with the licence terms, just like they would have to with
any other software licence agreement," he added.
In terms of the settlement agreement, Fortinet UK Ltd will
modify its End User Licensing Agreement (EULA), include the GPL
licensing terms with all shipments, and make available the full
corresponding source code of all GPL licensed software upon
request.
The settlement agreement also provides that no Fortinet partners
will be subject to legal action.
The settlement is the latest in a series of more than 30
out-of-court settlement that the project has managed to negotiate
in the past 15 months.
