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That's only partially true. What you're talking about are pre-release versions of the firmware. Sveasoft has said that release versions will be available to the public completely for free.
Also, the redistribution clause you're talking about is a little vague. No one "instantly loses access to future versions" as you so carelessly put it. This link helps clarify:
Sveasoft Faq
I suspect they don't want people redistributing the source, but pointing to Sveasoft for support issues. It's not an uncommon thing in free software...check out some of the DVD Shrink and VCD Easy support horror stories. Both of these products were included in software packages without the developers' consent, and any support issues were forwarded to the developers.

With regards to the "restrictive development model," I believe that it became a pain in the ass supporting their pre-release versions for free. People bitched about features not being available, demanded the source code to prereleases (rightly so, according to the GPL, but to hear Sveasoft talk about it, they were rude about it), and in general, were assholes about the software (it's getting pretty typical for people to be jerks about free software, while paying an arm-and-a-leg for Microsoft's software and being complacent..boggles the mind). Anyway, requiring people to pay for the binaries seems to have greatly reduced the amount of crap that goes through the forums. There's now a subscriber-only forum that has fewer demands and accusations in it. The source code is freely available to anyone who pays for the binaries, as is completely allowed by the GPL (you only have to provide the source to people you give the binaries to).

It's important to note that Sveasoft is not the only group out there extending the abilities of these boxes. Linksys/CISCO releasing the code has allowed many groups a crack at modifying these systems to their hearts content.
Wifi-Box is incredably stable, and offers many options, taht are also being extended.

OpenWRT aims to be very light, but allow you to add packages to customize anyway you want.

More info on the router can be found at Seattle Wireless.

We have a 7 node mesh with up to three deep on any single linear chain using WDS. It works great. Our longes link is 6 kilometers through forest, islands, and over water.

I would recommend using cheap AP's designed for home use and a third party firmware that allows them to link up and form a mesh.

The Linksys WRT54G is about $70 or less on Amazon and with third party firmware it can be linked into a mesh using something called WDS.

You can also add PoE and larger antennas quite reasonably.

See the Sveasoft site for more information.

Check out the "hacked" firmware for the Linksys WRT54G. Folks have wired entire communities with $80 wireless routers and third party firmware.

http://www.sveasoft.com

Here is a 6km link using these babies.

Check out the "hacked" firmware for the Linksys WRT54G. Folks have wired entire communities with $80 wireless routers and third party firmware.

http://www.sveasoft.com

Here is a 6km link using these babies.

If you have the Linksys WRT54G, you can use a hacked firmware to get all 14 channels. Check out http://www.sveasoft.com/modules/phpBB2/viewforum.p hp?f=6 for the forums on how people are doing it. I'm not sure if you can hack the wireless lan card do access the same channels or not. They sell the WRT54G domestically and internationally. The chipsets can handle all the channels, but the firmware limits the US version to 1 - 11.

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Retail Retreat

there was a firmware modification for the Linksys WRT54G router. [...] This seems to have a reasonable development community now the code is open source.

If only it were that simple! Linksys actually did a very similar thing to RealTek in that they didn't release source to their binary drivers (although they took the more-palatble-to-Linus route of releasing the binary drivers as a kernel module, at least). They also released source code with tons of comments to the effect that this was unpublished, proprietary code which was explicitly prohibited from being reproduced - this was not kernel source but additional things needed to run the router, such as the init code and web configuration interface.

This has led to (at least in my mind) a lingering cloud of uncertainty over all of the open-source forks, which so far are all based on the result of linking binary-only modules and proprietary source code. Meanwhile one prominent developer has endured a bitter GPL flame war and has moved to a subscription-based model for his version.

there was a firmware modification for the Linksys WRT54G router. [...] This seems to have a reasonable development community now the code is open source.

If only it were that simple! Linksys actually did a very similar thing to RealTek in that they didn't release source to their binary drivers (although they took the more-palatble-to-Linus route of releasing the binary drivers as a kernel module, at least). They also released source code with tons of comments to the effect that this was unpublished, proprietary code which was explicitly prohibited from being reproduced - this was not kernel source but additional things needed to run the router, such as the init code and web configuration interface.

This has led to (at least in my mind) a lingering cloud of uncertainty over all of the open-source forks, which so far are all based on the result of linking binary-only modules and proprietary source code. Meanwhile one prominent developer has endured a bitter GPL flame war and has moved to a subscription-based model for his version.

I was waiting to make sure the guy who does the firmware, James, was aware that he was about to /.ed. I see that someone else already posted a link to his site so it's a moot point now.

I'm using Sveasoft's version of the firmware. He's done some cool stuff, and he is very helpful. His code supports client mode, WDS, bandwidth management, etc. I currently use one of his older revs on my client device because it lets me specify a different subnet for the LAN side of my client mode box (8.3 is the version that lets you do this). I'm going to start experimenting with WDS when the next release comes out.

If you ended up buying a WET, go sell it on eBay. I ended up getting $70 for my WET11 and only had to pay another $10 to get a WRT54G.

-prator

Because most are black boxes, you have to take whoever the manufacturers word for it that they have a solid tcp/ip stack that won't be susceptible to this sort of attack.

The Linksys WRT54G actually runs Linux

A few people have been able to compile custom versions of the firmware that include some extra (and very cool) functionality. If the tcp/ip stack is part of Linksys' GPL'd packages (I'm not sure if it is), it can be examined.

Custom firmware for the wrt54g does/will do pretty much the same thing. Progress is very quick. See the forum here:

sveasoft