A decades-long struggle for the right of users to test the smart TV program

The SFC’s lawsuit alleges that Vizio violated the GPLv2 and LGPLv2.1 by not providing the full source code for the Vizio OS. The case is currently in the Orange County Superior Court of the State of California. The lawsuit targets Vizio in particular, but the implications could extend to other Linux-based smart TVs such as LG’s webOS, Samsung’s Tizen, and Roku’s Roku OS.

“We hope that all companies that distribute Linux and other software using open source agreements such as the GPL in their products will comply with these agreements,” Denver Gingerich, director of legal affairs at the SFC, told Ars.

The SFC sued Vizio primarily because the group had received numerous reports from users concerned about the company’s TVs, Gingerich said. Vizio has shared some of its uses, but the SFC says the code “does not include all the files and documents that would allow the code to be compiled into a workable format,” according to its complaint, which was updated in 2024.PDF).

“As a non-profit organization with limited resources, unfortunately we cannot resolve every violation of the GPL agreement, but we work diligently to resolve what is important to various users, and the popularity of Vizio TVs tells us that resolving this issue may be well worth the effort,” said Gingerich.

Laws of the GPLv2 states that “(f)or an executable work, the complete source code refers to all the source code of all the modules it contains, including any source definition files, including scripts used to control compilation and implementation of the executable.”

The FSF says there is “no reason” for the code to be hidden

Legal filings from Vizio and the SFC establish the Freedom Software Foundation (FSF) as the authority on the GPLs in question, as it is the license administrator and publisher of the GNU licenses, including GPLv2 and LGPLv2.1.