User:Kd4dcy/Sveasoft

Sveasoft is a Stockton, California based software company that develops modified distributions of Wi-Fi router firmware for supported Linux-based routers from ASUS, Belkin, Buffalo Technology, Linksys, and Netgear.

The company's development team has been reduced to the sole owner, James Huston Ewing. The company is managed by Sweden native Åsa Birgitta Erlandsson, who acts as Board Deputy for the company. As of September 8, 2006, the company has reported losses of 159,000 Swedish krona, or US$21,449. For financial reasons, nearly all assets in the United States have been liquidated.

Features
Sveasoft firmware is typically advertised as being able to increase the router's radio transmission power from 28 milliwatts to 251 milliwatts, as well as being able to use 14 channels for 802.11b transmissions instead of the 11 normally permitted in the U.S. or 13 permitted elsewhere. Modifications to power and frequency may interfere with other electronics, and may be illegal in some jurisdictions. The maximum power permitted by the U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) for WiFi with a 5 dBi or less antenna is 1000 mW, the maximum power permitted by the European ETSI is 100 mW, both EIRP, i.e. including antenna gain. Using channels 12, 13 or 14 in the U.S. is not permitted. In nearly all non-U.S. locations channels 1-13 are permitted. Channels 1-14 are legal in Japan and unregulated areas.

Other features include QoS support, Wireless Distribution System support, wireless bridging, client mode support (CPE), a PPTP VPN server and client, downloadable packages and IPv6 support.

The latest version of the Talisman firmware supports up to 16 Ethernet VLANs, up to 15 virtual wireless VLANs each with their own WEP, WPA, or WPA2 encryption and SSID, and bandwidth management and firewall features.

Sveasoft has released several new Talisman firmware versions including Talisman/Hotspot, Talisman/VPN (with IPSec support), Talisman/Mesh (automatic mesh networking).

Satori
Satori, along with many other minor releases, is one of the earliest Sveasoft firmware development projects. Nearly all the projects have been halted to develop the Alchemy revisions. It is not recommended to use these earlier firmware releases.

Alchemy
This is the current "public" release, which Sveasoft distributes to both subscribers and non-subscribers. Development has ceased for Alchemy in favor of further development of Talisman, though unofficial development continues to this day. As one of the most mature Sveasoft firmware releases, most people use Alchemy.

Talisman
This is the latest Sveasoft firmware release, and is available to the public at no cost (though registration is required). Versions of Talisman specializing in Hotspots, Mesh routing, VPN services, are currently available. The public release is Talisman version 1.3.1 and was released September 15, 2007.

Software licensing
The WRT54G router runs a version of Linux. Many of the software packages in the firmware are licensed under the GNU General Public License (GPL), including the Linux kernel.

Sveasoft provides firmware under an annual subscription for US$25, which also gives access to the support forum. Talisman requires that the MAC addresses of each router are registered on Sveasoft's web site. The web site software writes each authorized MAC address to the firmware before it is downloaded, so the firmware will run only on those devices. Sveasoft allows users to download old, released versions of the firmware for free once you register a forum account on their site.

Controversies
There are several controversies surrounding Sveasoft, involving the distribution of the software, the personalities involved and GPL-related issues. One of these issues is that Sveasoft charges a fee to download the latest binary of their firmware without releasing or providing free access to the source code, which is a violation of the GPL license.

On March 11, 2006, the OpenWrt developers publicly announced that Sveasoft had violated its GPL license terms, and that Sveasoft's continuing distribution of OpenWrt was prohibited. In return, Sveasoft claimed that OpenWrt was illegally redistributing software copyrighted by Sveasoft and Broadcom and placing them under the GPL without being authorized to do so by the copyright holders. Both groups deny the other's allegations.