[RndTbl] WRT54G Wireless Router firmware

[Shawn Wallbridge]

On 11-May-05, at 2:26 PM, Bill Reid wrote:

> Shawn Wallbridge wrote:
>> On 11-May-05, at 9:18 AM, Bill Reid wrote:
>>> Here is a company that is trying to make money at producing
>>> the firmware:
>>>
>>> http://www.sveasoft.com/
>> And they are breaking the GPL by refusing to release the source and
>
> The source for the released version is available:
> http://www.wrt54g.com/

Yeah, but that is a MUCH older release.

>
>> They have also implemented a mechanism that locks a specific download 
>> of the firmware to a specific router (by MAC and serial number).
> I have not seen this. I run the same binary on two routers.

They implemented it in the last release.

>
>> Here is a slashdot article (I can't find the other site I read about 
>> a bunch of this stuff)...
>> http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=04/07/21/2255239
>
> A comment from the Slashdot article: "The  thread summary at 
> DSLReports only makes it clear that this is all very complicated." I 
> agree it is not as open as other projects.
>
> The $20/yr is for support and access to the pre-release version of the 
> software.
> The debate is whether they have to release the source for the 
> pre-release. Isn't this sort of like what sendmail and ghostscript are 
> doing?
>
> I have no problems supporting their effort.

I don't have a problem with them charging for the support or supporting 
them to develop it, it's the efforts they are putting into making sure 
people can't share and then going after people that do share (they ban 
people from the forums as soon as they share, they have contacted 
people's ISP's and claimed it violated the DMCA, etc, they even sent 
Google a cease and desist letter). I will try to find the site I saw 
earlier that documented the hell they put people through that tried to 
share.

shawn