Months later, according to the SFC, AVM provided all the relevant source code and scripts, but the suit continued. AVM ultimately paid Steck's attorney fee. The case proved, once again, that not only are source code requirements real, but the LGPL also demands freedom, despite its "Lesser" name, and that source code needs to be useful in making real changes to firmware—in German courts, at least.

"The favorable result of this lawsuit exemplifies the power of copyleft—granting users the freedom to modify, repair, and secure the software on their own devices," the SFC said in a press release. "Companies like AVM receive these immense benefits themselves. This lawsuit reminded AVM that downstream users must receive those very same rights under copyleft.". //

At the top is perhaps the best-known case in tech circles, the Linksys WRT54G conflict from 2003. While the matter was settled before a lawsuit was filed, negotiations between Linksys owner Cisco and a coalition led by the Free Software Foundation, publisher of the GPL and LGPL, made history. It resulted in the release of all the modified and relevant GPL source code used in its hugely popular blue-and-black router.

The backstory, such as it exists from reports and retrospectives, is that Cisco bought Linksys, Linksys outsourced certain chipset development to Broadcom, and Broadcom outsourced firmware development to an overseas developer. Everybody up the chain ended up with a lawsuit once people started looking.

Cisco made history yet again in 2007 when it was the first entity to be actually sued by the FSF over GPL violations, which started in 2003 and continued to come up with new hardware products. Cisco settled the case with the FSF in 2009, making a donation to the FSF and appointing a Free Software Director at the company to keep track of its licensing obligations.