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Harald Welte Calls Out Netgear's Open Source Sham

Posted by timothy on from the they're-workin'-on-it dept.

Simon80 writes "Harald Welte, known for his involvement in various open source communities, has pointed out the shortcomings of Netgear's open source router hype. Netgear's own astroturfed community site reveals that the router requires the use of binary-only kernel modules for the wireless and ethernet hardware, which is supplied by Broadcom. Also worth noting are the missing features in third-party firmware versions supplied by Netgear."

5 of 199 comments (clear)

  1. Old Argument by bradgoodman · · Score: 0, Troll

    This sounds like the same argument that's been going around within the Linux kernel comunity about the "Open-Sourceness" of all these drivers which use binary-blobs - in partuclar, a lot of wireless Ethernet drivers, and stuff like NDISwrapper. It's idealistic to want all software to be open - but for companies which pour a lot of intellectual property into their drivers and firmware, I find it understandable that they wouldn't want their work made available to competitors' products. If they're not using any open-source in their binaries themselves, it's no violation. My opinion is this - if you don't like it, don't use it.

  2. I'm sorry, did I miss something? by RightSaidFred99 · · Score: -1, Troll

    Did Netgear claim it was an _only_ open source router, meaning everything in it is open source? I don't recall them claiming such a thing.

    So...strawman.

    And way for the Open Source community to encourage vendors to use OS. Shrill complaints are always helpful.

  3. Le'ts try this by djupedal · · Score: 0, Troll

    Everyone that has converted a router to OSS, raise their hand....

    Everyone else....leave the room.

  4. Re:Silly netgear by malevolentjelly · · Score: -1, Troll

    Red Hat markets to enterprises, not freetards. Freetards do not purchase RHEL.

  5. Re:Vote with your dollars by petrus4 · · Score: 0, Troll

    I'm assuming that this being modded down to 0, Troll was the usual FSF enforcement action against dissenting opinion.

    I'm really looking forward to a time when you stop doing that, guys. It's wrong, and it doesn't do anything other than make you look bad.