uh. Any decision that declared the GPL invalid would have to be so novel, and so far reaching that it would probably break all software licenses.
I truly doubt that Cisco (which describes itself as a software company) would want that to happen.
The fact that it's never been seriously challenged in court is more a testament to it's soundness than anything else. A number of brilliant legal minds have looked at it and decided that challenging it would not be a profitable endeavour.
"Any decision that declared the GPL invalid would have to be so novel, and so far reaching that it would probably break all software licenses."
This is not true at all because regular software licenses are enforced under contract law and open source licenses are based on a legal theory about copyright law and granting permissions under a set of terms and conditions.
One way that this lawsuit could turn out to be a disaster is that the courts could decide to interpret the GPL as a contract rather than a (bare) license. As far as I can tell that would make it rather toothless and impractical to enforce.
When things that are as fundamental and important as that are still up in the air, you don't want to argue against Cisco's legal team about it.
I truly doubt that Cisco (which describes itself as a software company) would want that to happen.
The fact that it's never been seriously challenged in court is more a testament to it's soundness than anything else. A number of brilliant legal minds have looked at it and decided that challenging it would not be a profitable endeavour.