Cisco Says It Will Resolve iPhone GPL Violation

Late last week, Cisco acknowledged on its corporate blog that a contributor to the GNU Violations Project notified the company that its VoIP iPhone -- up until last November known as the WIP300 -- may violate terms of the GNU General Public License. Since it's a Linux phone, full source code for its implementation must be made public to comply with the license terms.

Armijn Hemel, who co-manages the GPL Violations Project with Harald Welte, notified journalists and bloggers, before notifying Cisco itself, the company said, that certain of its technologies in its Linux-enabled phone had not been made public. According to IDG News Service, Hemel told reporters he had reverse-engineered firmware for the phone, and then discovered certain features whose source code had apparently not appeared on existing public source code inventories.

Hemel told IDG he "bombarded" Cisco's Linksys division with inquiries before finally being put in touch with Cisco management on October 30. At that time, the Cisco iPhone in question was still known as the WIP300. While Cisco seemed receptive at the time, Hemel is quoted in Computerworld as saying the company did not take action.

A few months later, after the phone changed its brand just weeks ahead of Apple's iPhone announcement, Hemel sensed a certain irony. "For someone talking about Apple using Cisco's property," he told IDG, "actually they're infringing on copyright themselves. So it's just a double standard."

Cisco's blog post acknowledges that Hemel raised the issue with bloggers last week, before slipping that Hemel had already brought the matter to Cisco's attention first. "Cisco has thoroughly investigated the information Mr. Hemel brought to our attention related to the Cisco iPhone WIP300 model as reported," the post reads. "Based on our investigation, Cisco is taking steps to resolve a single issue raised regarding this product's compliance with the GNU General Public License."

Meanwhile, Cisco continues its pursuit of Apple for using a trademark that Linksys acquired from Infogear for use with telecom equipment years ago. While some legal scholars and attorneys have recently commented that Cisco's rights to use "iPhone" may have expired last year for lack of use, Cisco's own public arguments that an agreement between the two companies could have been reached, continue to appear on its Web site.

Included in those arguments are these paragraphs from Cisco Senior VP Mark Chandler, which carry a different ring in the wake of Hemel's discoveries: "Fundamentally we wanted an open approach. We hoped our products could interoperate in the future. In our view, the network provides the basis to make this happen - it provides the foundation of innovation that allows converged devices to deliver the services that consumers want. Our goal was to take that to the next level by facilitating collaboration with Apple. And we wanted to make sure to differentiate the brands in a way that could work for both companies and not confuse people, since our products combine both web access and voice telephony. That's it. Openness and clarity.

"This lawsuit is about Cisco's obligation to protect its trademark in the face of a willful violation," Chandler's statement continues. "Our goal was collaboration. The action we have taken today is about not using people's property without permission."