Cisco has just been cited for violating the GPL - this time, for not relasing the code for some of the applications built in support of its iPhone.
This is the second time that Cisco has been less than forthcoming in meeting disclosure requirements under GPL. However, Ithink that much of the fuss is unwarranted. Cisco's failure to provide source code is more indicative of their top-down approach to source managment within the company than consistent, malicious disregard. Remember, Cisco has well over 200 products under its corporate/brand umbrella, and goes out of its way to occlude the particulars of each product source tree. These products run OSes as diverse as Linux, QNX, VxWorks, Windows, and probably legacy native IOS. They give product groups a great deal of automony and they insert IOS m/w as a means to level the differences among products and embedded s/w. So when a product team or a third party contracted to build a product doesn't have the needed sensibilities and/or close legal oversight, it is likely, even inevitable that required source code disclosure requirements are not observed.
What the press generally fails to report is that most GPL "enforcement" actions result in expedited disclosure by the "offender", and moreover that "violations" are not specific to GPL and open source licenses but belong to the larger realm of copyright law.
Cisco actually has fairly well-developed open source sensibilities at a high level. Calling on Cisco to participate ignores the active participation by many at the company, and the history of the corporate entity as well. Cisco was was an active members of OSDL (my former employer) for several years running and employ numerous people with decent open source credentials. What they have failed to do is to inclulcate those sensibilities at every level of the company and to companion them with workable and consistent best practices.