Linksys, Cisco’s consumer division have released several routers with firmware based on parts of the Linux operating system. In order to do that they had to license the firmware as GPL and make the source code available for free online. Earthlink (a giant ISP) has taken that firmware and modified it to support IPV6 addresses (as opposed to the IPV4 IP addresses the vast majority of us are using now). The benefits of IPV6 are many, but among them are the fact that we are running out of possible IPV4 addresses and so we must use NAT (Network Address Translation) to offer Internet connections to people behind private internal networks. IPV6 removes this limitation has it has an infinitely larger number of available addresses. The point of the story is that by offering their Firmware under the GPL license, the power to modify or bugfix their router is in their own hands, you need not wait for ages to get the functionality or bug fixes you need. There are already several groups about that are adding extended functionality to the router firmware so if the manufacturer doesn’t offer the function you need, the chances are good that somebody else has done the work for you or are working to do so. Isn’t sharing great?
Read TheInquirer for the full story or see Linksys for the Linksys WRT54G firmware upgrade.
