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
