A late‑breaking minute order from Judge Sandy Leal has delayed Software Freedom Conservancy’s Vizio GPL trial, leaving only a January 26 pretrial hearing firmly set.
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It appears that Software Freedom Conservancy has hit a legal speed bump that’s delaying proceedings in its action against “smart” TV maker Vizio. There had been a January 8 pretrial motion hearing scheduled as a precursor to a trial that was set to start on January 12.
“Just about an hour before the hearing’s start-time, Judge Sandy Leal issued a Minute Order that rescheduled the hearing and (effectively) removed the trial,” Bradley Kühn, a policy fellow, hacker‑in‑residence, and board member at the Software Freedom Conservancy wrote on SFC’s web site.
According to Kühn, the rescheduling was necessitated by another trial that was taking longer than the court had initially anticipated.
“Right now, our only item scheduled with the Court is the rescheduled pretrial hearing at 09:00 (PST) on the morning of Monday 26 January 2026,” he wrote.
SFC’s action against Vizio has been a long row to hoe, having started in 2021. Essentially, SFC claims that Vizio violated terms of the General Public License, version 2 and Lesser General Public License, version 2.1, by failing to make software available under terms spelled out by the licenses. Vizio’s SmartCast TVs include more than a dozen open source packages that are intermixed with its own proprietary software.
On December 4, Judge Leal issued a tentative ruling supporting SFC’s claim that Vizio has a duty to provide SFC with the complete source code covered under open source licenses to a TV it purchased, signaling that she expected SFC to prevail.
Then, on December 23 the judge ruled on a Vizio motion, which clarified that the GPL and LGPL don’t require it to provide source code that can be compiled and installed as a drop-in replacement for the code that ships with its SmartCast TVs — addressing an issue that was not a part of SFC’s claim.
After that, it appeared that the case was set for quick conclusion, likely before the end of the month. With the January 15 trial date now cancelled, when the case might end is anybody’s guess. The trial probably won’t be rescheduled until the case that caused the cancellation concludes.
Meanwhile, the folks at SFC are taking a philosophical view of the postponement.
“While some criticize the USA for being ‘too litigious,’ we at SFC believe firmly that the civil courts are the best place where ordinary citizens and small, scrappy non-profit charities like SFC can seek justice when our rights are violated,” Kühn said. “We also know that there is more injustice in our country these days than anyone would like, and this delay occurred because there are other folks out there seeking justice on other important issues and rights, too.”
Kühn indicated that this delay will be used as something of a teaching moment by SFC.
“We’ll spend the next two weeks posting the various recent motions and filings in the case, and publishing some retrospective summaries of the last four and a half years of the case for you all to read,” he said.
Christine Hall has been a journalist since 1971. In 2001, she began writing a weekly consumer computer column and started covering Linux and FOSS in 2002 after making the switch to GNU/Linux. Follow her on Twitter: @BrideOfLinux
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