Beware of the Open-Source Licensing Gap

Understand the risks of open-source licensing in hardware design and learn best practices from industry experts.

By Yashasvini Razdan, EETimes | April 11, 2025

Two decades ago, Cisco, a global leader in networking and telecommunications equipment, acquired Linksys, a company that developed routers using embedded software. What started out as a routine acquisition developed into a cautionary tale of open-source compliance. Unbeknownst to Cisco, Linksys included open-source components licensed under the General Public License (GPL).

Now anyone dabbling in open source knows that a GPL license is widely used with stringent requirements to provide access to the source code of the entire application. The license also mandates that these terms will be retained and passed on, in case the software is redistributed. A wonderful thing about the open-source community is that it is its own watchdog. In its ignorance or avoidance, Cisco forgot (debatable) to fulfil its GPL obligations, which did not go unnoticed by the Freedom Software Foundation (FSF)—a non-profit organization focused on enforcing compliance with free and open-source software licenses.

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