Sveasoft engaging in questionable GPL violations....

In the spirit of disclosure and to protect the potential buyer, I felt
this development is worthy of dissemination on this newsgroup.

It has come to my attention that the popular firmware developer
Sveasoft, who developes enhanced firmware for Linksys, Belkin,
Buffalotech and Asus routers, is engaging in activities that are
against the letter and spirit of the GPL license.

Essentially, the developer is terminating user accounts after the
following activities:

1. The user redistributes the software.
2. The user posts the MD5 hash for security purposes.

Both of these actions are in accordance with the GPL license.
Furthermore redistributing the software is *explicitly* sanctioned
under the GPL license provided that the source code is also made
available.

Sveasoft's charges its users $20 dollars for a subscription to their
enhanced firmware. This charge covers Sveasoft's expenses for support
and distribution, which is perfectly acceptable under the GPL license.

However, Sveasoft, for singling out and closing user accounts solely
on the basis that the user redistributed the firmware, is trying to
abridge the rights of the user granted to them under the GPL license,
as well as deny them access to services they have paid for.
Essentially, Sveasoft is trying to control the distribution of their
firmware *once it has passed into the hands of the user*. By
extension, this goes against the letter and spirit of the GPL license,
upon which ALL of Sveasoft's products are based upon.

Furthermore, as a result of the outcry of many, Sveasoft has decided
to cut-off all downloads and has chosen to only distribute their
firmware on CD for a cost of $50 dollars. Perhaps this is an attempt
to "punish" their users. The circumstances seem to point in that
direction.

There is a full discussion of the topic at:
http://www.dslreports.com/forum/rema...4029~mode=flat

So, in short, those who are looking into Sveasoft firmware for their
home routers...."caveat emptor".

Regards,
Legg

leggmason2003@yahoo.com (WTR54G User) wrote:
>It has come to my attention that the popular firmware developer
>Sveasoft, who developes enhanced firmware for Linksys, Belkin,
>Buffalotech and Asus routers, is engaging in activities that are
>against the letter and spirit of the GPL license.

Yeah, this kinda shows the whole problem with the "open source"
'marketplace', there's no way to make any money from it, so it's only
ever going to be a labor of love, difficult to make work, and
indifferently supported at best.

--
William Smith
ComputerSmiths Consulting, Inc. www.compusmiths.com

> It has come to my attention that the popular firmware developer
> Sveasoft, who developes enhanced firmware for Linksys, Belkin,
> Buffalotech and Asus routers, is engaging in activities that are
> against the letter and spirit of the GPL license.

I don't think it's against the letter of the GPL.

It might be against the spirit since an important part of it is to allow you
to fix your tools (or get them fixed) and share those fixes with
other people, whereas Sveasoft only allows you to do that if you give up
on getting further updates from them.

But their website is pretty upfront about it.


Stefan