[ANNOUNCE] Settlement with Patrick McHardy

[ANNOUNCE] Settlement with Patrick McHardy

[Pablo Neira Ayuso]

The netfilter project announces a settlement with Patrick McHardy.
This settlement is legally binding and it governs any legal enforcement
activities concerning all programs and program libraries published by
the netfilter/iptables project on its website [1] as well as the Linux
kernel [2]. Please, see the court order [3] (in German) and/or the
translation of the court order for further details [4].

After losing contact with Patrick in regard to questions about his
unilateral enforcement activities and his subsequent suspension from
the core team in 2016, three current and former core team members
decided to file a lawsuit against Patrick in 2020. During this
lawsuit, communication with Patrick was re-established in 2021, and a
settlement could be reached.

This settlement establishes that any decision-making around
netfilter-related enforcement activities should be based on a majority
vote. Thus, each active coreteam member [5] at the time of the
enforcement request holds one right to vote. This settlement covers
past and new enforcement, as well as the enforcement of contractual
penalties related to past declarations to cease-and-desist.

The netfilter project continues to endorse "The Principles of
Community-Oriented GPL Enforcement" [6]. Therefore, this settlement does
not release third parties from their obligations to comply with the
license [7] hereinafter.

The netfilter coreteam and I personally would like to thank everyone
that has been helping and supportive in these difficult years for making
possible this legal solution.

[1] https://www.netfilter.org
[2] https://www.kernel.org
[3] https://www.netfilter.org/files/2022-01-24-Beschluss_und_Vergleich.pdf
[4] https://www.netfilter.org/files/2022-01-24-Translation_Court_Order_and_Settlement.pdf
[5] https://www.netfilter.org/about.html#coreteam
[6] http://www.netfilter.org/files/statement.pdf
[7] https://www.netfilter.org/licensing.html