[Discuss] Fwd: Hey FCC, Don't Lock Down Our Wi-Fi Routers | WIRED

[Bill Bogstad]

On Sat, Nov 7, 2015 at 7:03 PM, Rich Pieri <richard.pieri at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 11/7/2015 5:08 PM, Bill Bogstad wrote:
>>
>> With the exception of Apple and their AirPort products, I'm not aware
>> of any "manufacturer" of products of this type who doesn't frequently
>> sell products using the Linux kernel (i.e. GPLed software).
>
>
> Cisco. Netgear. Linux shipping on their devices is a rare exception last I
> knew.

Apparently we are ignoring the fact that the Linksys brand/company was
owned by Cisco from around 2003 to 2013.  I'm pretty sure they sold
lots home routers during that time period under the the "Linksys by
Cisco" brand name. Given the wide range of products that Cisco sells,
it is certainly the case that most of them don't use Linux.  Of course
most of those products have nothing to do with the home networking
market.  In that market, "Linksys by Cisco" was (as far as I know) the
bulk of their offerings and Linux was common on those devices.  More
recently their IOx efforts to marry IOS and Linux seems to indicate
that Cisco isn't afraid of selling Linux based products.

As for Netgear, at least some of their ReadyNAS product line
apparently use Linux and this web page of source code for firmware for
various Netgear products shows many products using GPLed (usually?
linux) software:

http://kb.netgear.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/2649/~/netgear-open-source-code-for-programmers-%28gpl%29

Since neither one of us has defined "frequently" or "rare exception",
I suppose we can both argue that we are right.   I would willingly
acknowledge, however, that networking products targeted at businesses
(particularly large enterprises) are less likely to use Linux/GPL
based firmware than SOHO targeted products.   Why that is I couldn't
say for sure.   Perhaps market segmentation efforts?  "You don't want
to run your enterprise network on commodity software.
Instead use our homegrown software".

>> supporting new hardware.
>
>   ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
>
> That's the answer I already gave you. It's phrased differently but it's the
> same answer. It all comes down to who supports what.

Fine with this.   Time to market/ability to use the cheapest chips as
fast as possible for
SOHO products is certainly a reason to not use OpenWRT.   But I don't
see that as having anything to do with OpenWRT being GPLed.

Bill Bogstad