Sunday, January 23, 2005
Sveasoft
Sveasoft
I'm currently using a Cisco router (1700 series with ADSL wic) and a Linksys WRT54GS for wireless connectivity.
I've upgraded the Linksys so it uses the Sveasoft firmware (currently Alchemey-6.0rc6) which is only available to Sveasoft subscribers (yes I paid my $20 annual subscription). They've done some nice additions to the bog standard Linksys code.
This shows how open source software works and can make money. Sveasoft make money from subscriptions and from "feature bounties" i.e. someone (or more than one person) on the forums paying one of the developers to add a feature. When the software is stable, they release it to the "public" and anyone can download it.
Linksys also win, as they can add the Sveasoft enhancements to their codebase, so take the features they want. This means bugs get fixed quickly and the product actually becomes more feature rich.
I believe the story goes that linksys didn't originally make their code open source, but had a few problems with the FSF as they based WRT series on a Linux codebase. After a fight they didn't just release the code, but also the complete toolchain so anyone with an x86 Linux system could build a .bin file which could then be uploaded to the router.
This is a win/win situation. Linksys sell WRT units, Sveasoft make some money AND Linksys get a base of developers adding features and fixing bugs which they can add back to their codebase.
I'm currently using a Cisco router (1700 series with ADSL wic) and a Linksys WRT54GS for wireless connectivity.
I've upgraded the Linksys so it uses the Sveasoft firmware (currently Alchemey-6.0rc6) which is only available to Sveasoft subscribers (yes I paid my $20 annual subscription). They've done some nice additions to the bog standard Linksys code.
This shows how open source software works and can make money. Sveasoft make money from subscriptions and from "feature bounties" i.e. someone (or more than one person) on the forums paying one of the developers to add a feature. When the software is stable, they release it to the "public" and anyone can download it.
Linksys also win, as they can add the Sveasoft enhancements to their codebase, so take the features they want. This means bugs get fixed quickly and the product actually becomes more feature rich.
I believe the story goes that linksys didn't originally make their code open source, but had a few problems with the FSF as they based WRT series on a Linux codebase. After a fight they didn't just release the code, but also the complete toolchain so anyone with an x86 Linux system could build a .bin file which could then be uploaded to the router.
This is a win/win situation. Linksys sell WRT units, Sveasoft make some money AND Linksys get a base of developers adding features and fixing bugs which they can add back to their codebase.
Comments:
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Sveasoft sucks! Try DD-WRT instead - no $20 "support fee", no violations of the GPL, no insane owner, more features, more stability...
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