A while ago, Daniel Lyons of Forbes wrote a piece titled “Linux’s Hit Men”, and it was a good reminder of how not everyone in business perceives Linux the way most techs do. However, this does not mean he was correct.

The article focused on legal action being taken by the Free Software Foundation against Cisco Systems and Broadcom. At the heart of the legal dispute is a wireless network router, sold by Cisco with parts manufactured by Broadcom, which uses a modified version of Linux as an operating system.

A brief background for non-techies: many hardware devices do not use Windows, as it requires too many resources. There is a wide range of operating systems available for so-called embedded devices; most operating systems require users to pay heavy licensing fees. Companies that wish to use QNX in a hardware device must first pay a fee for the privilege. Linux, however, is free to use and distribute; the only caveat is that if you make any improvements on the Linux code, you must share those improvements under the same terms.

How does this apply to Cisco? Their Linksys WRT54G router contains a modified version of Linux which has not been made publicly available. If the router contained other software that ran on top of Linux, they would have a legal basis for not disclosing it. But since changes were made to Linux itself, the terms of the license require disclosure. Thus, the FSF is suing to enforce the terms of the General Public License.

The immediate reaction of many is dismay — if Linux is free, why should all users’ products be free too? This is a misinterpretation of the facts. Lyons takes this stand, depicting the FSF as a rag-tag group of mercenaries who prey on innocent business:

Usually copyright holders seek money… But the Free Software Foundation doesn’t want royalties–it wants you to burn down your house, or at the very least share it with cloners.

This attitude is, at best, misguided; at worst, it is disingenuous and unfair. Lyons asserts that Cisco should not have to give up its intellectual property for others to steal; he makes no reference to the fact that their work is based on someone else’s intellectual property. Nobody is demanding all of Linksys’s software be released — simply the changes they made to Linux, which wasn’t their property to begin with.

Linksys has nothing to lose and much to gain from releasing its code — and this is why Open Source works. Had Linksys chosen to use a commercial OS for its routers instead of Linux, it would be paying heavy licensing fees for every copy it shipped. Using Linux cuts away these significant expenditures.

It should also be noted that access to Linksys’s modifications to Linux does not allow anyone to build a WRT54G router in their basement. When you buy a router, you’re not paying for the software inside it — you’re paying for the hardware, the manufacturing, and the user support that comes with the purchase. Rival hardware manufacturers could use the modified Linux code as well, but they won’t win more customers for it — the average consumer doesn’t care what operating system his router uses.

Most importantly, if Linksys publishes its modifications to Linux, there is a very good chance that the Open Source community will find, and fix, nascent software bugs and security vulnerabilities — free of charge.

While some may argue that Linksys should be allowed to keep its modifications secret, even if it’s not in their best interests, the fact remains that Linux is still a licensed technology. People who use it are given a compromise: you don’t have to pay any royalties, but you also can’t hijack the Linux code base. If you make any improvements, great — chances are, someone else could use them too. In the end, many developers accept this compromise because the savings vastly outweigh the costs.

Eric Raymond’s essay titled “The Magic Cauldron” explains a lot of the economics behind Open Source software development. One of his best ideas is the “Manufacturing Delusion”: the false notion that software is a manufacturing industry, when it’s really a services industry; people pay not for the code itself, but for help, guidance, and a guarantee that the code will function.

There will always be people who simply don’t understand Open Source. But when those people write for Forbes, I think it’s in the community’s interest to show them just how far off the mark they are.