Sitting in Mclean (at an absent coworker's unpleasantly messy desk) doesn't do much for the ol' inspiration -- I used up all of my daily bullshit quota trying to convince my boss to buy me an Axim for no particular reason. But I can't let the weekday blog streak break. What has it been? Two weeks? Ripkenesque, baby.

So let me offer this: some dude is offering the SveaSoft binaries for free.

Allow me to explain why this is worth knowing (briefly). Once upon a time, Linksys released a consumer router called the WRT54G that runs Linux. Because of a license called the GPL, using Linux legally obligated them to release the changes they made to the public in a way that would let others build on their work. They didn't, but nerds noticed and eventually badgered them into compliance.

Linksys's code wasn't all that great, but others took and improved it. One particular guy who happens to live on an island off the coast of Sweden decided he'd like a wireless link to the mainland, and hacked in a function called WDS to make it possible. Other modifications followed, and the WRT54G turned into a much more powerful device than its $50ish price tag would suggest.

I've been meaning to write about the WRT54G for a while now, having bought one myself when the cheap Belkin routers I was using to pipe data from the kitchen to the Xbox proved to be pieces of shit. It works great -- in fact, I've been able to keep one of the Belkins. And I've been using the release of the Sveasoft firmware that's named "Alchemy".

But that's not the most up-to-date version of the software -- that'd be "Talisman". See, Sveasoft eventually decided they didn't care for the GPL's full implications either, so they reclassified the most recent, sophisticated version of the firmware as a "beta" release, and shut down the help forums and documentation for their software. The older software is available, but access to the new stuff or any documentation costs $20 a year.

Well, the documentation and support stuff is fine -- Sveasoft owns the copyright to those materials, and they can do with them what they want. But while this pay-for-beta system seems to follow the letter of the GPL, it's pretty clearly contrary to its spirit.

Not that it really affects me, per se. I don't really need the Talisman features. For one thing, there are now other, more sophisticated but less user-friendly WRT54G firmwares out there, like OpenWRT. For another, my router needs just aren't that great -- prioritizing VoIP and Xbox Live traffic over BitTorrent would be nice, but it's not exactly a major quality of life issue.

But still -- it's nice to see someone stand up against Sveasoft's hypocrisy.