Just don't call it trolling, Verizon

Busybox wrote a Linux application, under the GPL, which Verizon used in a wireless router it provides users of its FIOS service, which promises faster speed in exchange for cutting users' copper and tieing them to Verizon forever.

This is the fourth such suit by the SFLC this year. I wrote about the first, against Monsoon Multimedia, and as predicted that suit was settled quickly. Two others, against Xterasys and High-Gain Antennas, remain pending.

The relief being sought is that buyers of the router be given the source code for the software inside them. The GPL requires this.

Were I to guess here, Verizon will try first to get taken out of the case, saying it should have only been filed against ActionTec, which supplied the routers. 

Meanwhile, it will likely replace those routers with Linksys gear -- they make several non-Linux routers.  This will not be trivial as the editors of Fibercrap, from whom the above picture of an ActionTec router is taken, explain here.

But non-trivial and impossible are two entirely different concepts, as any engineer worth their pocket protector (and secret stash of Dexter's Lab cartoons) will tell you.

Once it has reduced its liability to the minimum its lawyers are comfortable with, Verizon will settle. Expect that to happen long before this hits a courtroom.

Getting back to the headline, this is not trolling. Trolling involves buying patent rights and suing the market. The SPLC is enforcing license terms on copyright agreements. The first is a patent case from someone not testing their claims in the market, the second is a contract case brought by a successful market participant.

Besides, copyrights last longer.