Sveasoft, OpenWRT, and the GPL
First, a bit of historical background. Some years ago, Linksys released the WRT54G home wireless router. It turned out that the router came with an embedded version of Linux, and therefore under terms of the GPL, users of the router were entitled to see the source code. After a bit of prodding, Linksys made the source available for download. Lots of people immediately started customizing the source for their personal needs, vastly expanding the capabilities of the tiny router. Some of these programmers formed Sveasoft, and started selling router firmware for profit.
Sveasoft, and its main developer/CEO James Ewing, have become famous for their … interesting approach to criticism. For instance, Bryan Batchelder, a Sveasoft subscriber, blogged about Sveasoft’s aggressive use of DMCA takedowns. Two weeks later, James Ewing cancelled Bryan’s subscription and even blocked his IP address.
In any case, many people hacking on the WRT54G routers, like Ewing, Sveasoft & Co., initially had simply chosen to modify Linksys’s original firmware. However, a group called OpenWRT have started from scratch and recently created a new, clean, highly customizeable Linux distro for a wide variety of home wireless routers. (For the record, I run OpenWRT and am extremely happy with it.) Recently, OpenWRT developers have discovered that the current “beta” versions of Sveasoft’s firmware are actually based on OpenWRT. (I am not a Sveasoft subscriber, so I cannot verify this claim — however, lots of people on the OpenWRT forum say that it is so.) Felix Fietkau, an OpenWRT dev, invoked the GPL and asked Sveasoft to release the source to their firmware, claiming that it was a derived work of OpenWRT. Ewing refused to do so, saying that the firmware was a beta, and thus somehow magically the terms of the GPL did not apply. (Ewing needs to read the GPL again — there are no exceptions for “alpha”, “beta”, “eta”, or any other letter of the alphabet.) So on March 11, OpenWRT revoked Sveasoft’s right to distribute OpenWRT intellectual property.
Unless the OpenWRT developers are wrong about Sveasoft using their code, and unless Sveasoft rewrites its distro, it is now illegal to distribute Sveasoft’s firmware.
The saddest part about this whole sordid story is that Sveasoft got its start by using the code released by Linksys under the GPL. Now, apparently, Sveasoft finds itself in violation of the license that allowed Ewing to create his company in the first place.