Netgear now touting open source WRT-compatible wireless router

[Alex Hewitt]

On Tue, 2008-07-01 at 18:55 -0400, Ben Scott wrote:
> On Tue, Jul 1, 2008 at 6:38 PM, Alex Hewitt <hewitt_tech at comcast.net> wrote:
> >> I thought with Cisco, the IOS (firmware) license wasn't
> >> transferable, so even if you bought used hardware, you still had to
> >> buy an IOS license from Cisco?
> >
> > Really?
> 
>   That's what I've been told, and some Google work appears to confirm.
>  The license itself [1] just states it is "nontransferable", which
> might be subject to interpretation.  But, while they don't exactly
> make it easy to find, I eventually dug up [2], which clearly states,
> "Cisco software licenses are not transferable from user to user."
> 
> [1] http://www.cisco.com/public/sw-license-agreement.html
> [2] http://www.cisco.com/application/pdf/en/us/partner/products/ps2978/c1592/ccmigration_09186a00801e4ea8.pdf
> 
> > I would have thought the IOS license would go with the hardware.
> 
>   You'd think so, but this is Cisco.  They didn't get rich by being
> nice.  They're sometimes called the Microsoft of the networking world.
> 
> > That's one reason I like GPL'd stuff so much. Way less complicated.
> 
>   Amen, brother!  :-)
> 

I just read the End User License Agreement that came with one of my
customer's Juniper Networks Netscreen appliances and it basically has
the same "nontransferable  rights" clause that Cisco uses. Same deal,
you can't sell your used Netscreen appliance to another user and have
them use the software that came with it. They need to buy their own
license.

I think I'll spend more time learning how to use OpenVPN...

-Alex

> > I've been going through the Microsoft terminal/user/device/per processor/enterprise
> > licensing cruft lately ...
> 
>   It helps to remember that you're not Microsoft's customer.
> Microsoft's customers are their distributors and major resellers.
> Theose companies benefit by having the licensing be so complex you
> need their help to manage it all.  So Microsoft has no incentive to
> make it easy.
> 
> -- Ben
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