Brief History

Actually the open source firmware development started after linksys announces the release of their new router - WRT 54G. In June 2003 some folks on the Linux Kernel Mailing List sniffed around this router and found that its firmware was based on Linux components. Because Linux is released under the GNU General Public License, or GPL, the terms of the license obliged Linksys to make available the source code of the WRT54G firmware. As most router firmware is proprietary code, vendors have no such obligation. It remains unclear whether Linksys was aware of the WRT54G’s Linux lineage, and its associated source requirements, at the time they released the router. But ultimately, under outside pressure to deliver on their legal obligation under the GPL, Linksys open sourced the WRT54G firmware in July 2003.

With the code in hand, developers learned exactly how to talk to the hardware inside and how to code any features the hardware could support. It has spawning a handful of open source firmware projects for the WRT54G that extend its capabilities, and reliability, far beyond what is expected from a cheap consumer-grade router. Developers started thinking about a firmware which can run on the same platform but with amazing feature set that doesn't come by default.

This was the history based on which the Tomato, DD-WRT, Open-WRT firmware project were started to be developed. Now these firmwares are going through evaluation for years - many developers in the open source community has developed different features, enriched and tested the firmwares. So by time these firmwares have been proved to be stable and feature-packed also. Besides this since all those firmwares are open sourced the source code is also freely available making it easy for the developers to customize the firmware for their own. Netgear 614v8 is manufactured keeping this open source demand in mind. This router is designed to support most of the third party broadcom based firmware to encourage the open source development.

Feature-Packed Firmwares

So Netgear 614v8 can be loaded with replacement firmware with exciting new features. Which raises the question – like what?

Of course, you can expect most replacement firmware to support the same basic functions Netgear provides out of the box for this wireless router. Often these features will be more stable, in cases where Netgear bugs have been fixed by other developers. But that’s not what makes open source firmware so exciting.

The real deal, that 614v8 can do with a right replacement firmware, that you’d only expect to find on a commercial-grade router costing several times.

You could use the wgr614v8 as a repeater or a bridge. Create a wireless distribution system (WDS) or a mesh network. Run a VPN server. Or a VoIP server. Or a managed hotspot with a RADIUS server. Manage bandwidth use per protocol. Control traffic shaping. Support IPv6. Boost antenna power. Remotely access router logs. Operate the router as a miniature low-power PC, running a variety of Linux applications.

That’s just the short list. Some firmware offerings support a wide range of these features while others are more tailored to specific router applications. Some sport friendlier configuration interfaces while some are command-line driven. And because these firmware files descend from Linksys’ open-source progenitor, they are freely available.

So that's the advantage. With open source firmware your router got a new brain a new outlook. Come on, try the opensource releases. Myopenrouter will continue releasing different firmwares for 614v8. Try that out and enjoy the freedom....

Good Luck