Aaron Williamson

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  www.softwarefreedom.org/news/2008/aug/20/compliance-gui - [Cached Version]
  Published on: 8/20/2008    Last Visited: 8/29/2008  

  "While SFLC's lawsuits filed on behalf of Busybox are the most visible recent enforcement actions, the vast majority of our enforcement work is conducted quietly and cooperatively on behalf of many different clients", said Aaron Williamson, a lawyer at SFLC and a co-author of the paper.

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  www.softwarefreedom.org/news/2008/jul/21/busybox/ - [Cached Version]
  Published on: 7/21/2008    Last Visited: 8/29/2008  

  "We attempted to negotiate with Extreme Networks, but they ultimately ignored us," said Aaron Williamson, SFLC Counsel.

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  www.softwarefreedom.org/news/2008/jul/23/busybox-superm - [Cached Version]
  Published on: 7/23/2008    Last Visited: 8/29/2008  

  "We are pleased that the parties can put this matter behind them and that Supermicro has taken measures to avoid future GPL violations," said Aaron Williamson, SFLC Counsel.
  
  The lawsuit, "Erik Andersen and Rob Landley v. Super Micro Computer, Inc."case number 1:08-cv-05269-RMB, was filed June 9, 2008, in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York.

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  www.softwarefreedom.org/news/2008/jun/10/busybox/ - [Cached Version]
  Published on: 6/10/2008    Last Visited: 8/29/2008  

  "Before filing these lawsuits, we contacted both companies and gave them the opportunity to remedy their violations privately, but they were continually unresponsive," said Aaron Williamson, SFLC Counsel.

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  www.softwarefreedom.org/blog/2008/jun/05/enforcement-la - [Cached Version]
  Published on: 6/5/2008    Last Visited: 8/29/2008  

  Aaron Williamson (rss)
  ...
  June 5, 2008 by Aaron Williamson
  ...
  Posted by Aaron Williamson on June 5, 2008.

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  www.linuxdailynews.com/news/NS4117660219.html - [Cached Version]
  Published on: 7/22/2008    Last Visited: 7/23/2008  

  Stated Aaron Williamson, SFLC Counsel, "We attempted to negotiate with Extreme Networks, but they ultimately ignored us.

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  www.linuxdailynews.com/news/NS7258915032.html - [Cached Version]
  Published on: 6/11/2008    Last Visited: 6/11/2008  

  According to SFLC counsel Aaron Williamson, the SFLC learned of the MyShare violation when they found out about Toth's investigation."Markus's investigation confirmed that there was a violation," said Williamson in an interview.
  ...
  According to Williamson, the SFLC contacted both Bell/Hammer and SuperMicro and gave them the opportunity to remedy their violations in private, but they were both unresponsive.
  ...
  "Actiontec opted to handle the majority of the settlement to take most of the terms on themselves, but there was also a settlement from Verizon," commented Williamson.
  
  Asked whether BusyBox had been chosen specifically as the model for all these test cases due to its ubiquity, Williamson said, "We don't choose our clients -- Busybox approached us.They had been doing their own enforcement work for some time, and as with many free software projects they had been having a difficult time getting violators to respond.They ultimately became pretty frustrated."
  
  According to Williamson, GPL violations are particularly prevalent in the embedded world."Most of the violations that we see are in the embedded Linux space," he said."In many cases, there's an upstream vendor.The hardware manufacturer buys an embedded Linux distribution from the upstream software vendor and the manufacturers either don't know or don't care enough to comply with the license."
  
  Williamson added that there's no practical -- or legal -- reason that it should take months to acquire the source code and post it, as had been suggested by Hammer."That's not a legitimate answer," he said.

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  www.linuxdailynews.com/news/NS2280327933.html - [Cached Version]
  Published on: 8/20/2008    Last Visited: 8/20/2008  

  The paper was written by SFLC lawyers Aaron Williamson, Bradley M. Kuhn, and Karen M. Sandler.

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  practical-tech.com/network/sflc-keeps-on-the-gpl-case-s - [Cached Version]
  Last Visited: 7/30/2008  

  "We attempted to negotiate with Extreme Networks, but they ultimately ignored us," said Aaron Williamson, SFLC Counsel in a statement.

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  practical-tech.com/operating-system/linux/violate-the-g - [Cached Version]
  Last Visited: 7/30/2008  

  "Before filing these lawsuits, we contacted both companies and gave them the opportunity to remedy their violations privately, but they were continually unresponsive," said Aaron Williamson, SFLC counsel in a press statement.
  ...
  Williamson responded in the pages of SFLC that "The issue is hardly that FOSS [Free and Open Source Software] licenses present hidden risks.By and large, they are clearer and less onerous than proprietary software licenses.Nor is it the case that 'the freedom belongs to the software, not to users.' All users, including for-profit companies, are afforded the same substantial freedoms by FOSS licenses.But as has always been the case, the GPL does not give any user the right to deny those freedoms to others.This could only be a 'new lesson' to someone who has never read the license.
  
  The real point, according to Williamson, is that companies that use FOSS licensed software illegally may be doing so because of "ignorance of their legal obligations, indifference owing to a history of non-enforcement, etc.â€"but it seems that in the overwhelming majority of cases, the decision has nothing to do with protecting a proprietary business model.

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