On Thu, Mar 09, 2023 at 11:45:18AM -0500, Alvin Starr via talk wrote:
For a while Linksys was selling a version of the WRT54 that was specifically for OpenWRT.
Well the WRT54G v5 cut the ram in half and put vxworks on it, which ruined performance and upset people so they made a WRT54GL with the original specs and linux again.
So at some point they were not anti-OpenSource. Linksys did get acquired by Cisco around 2005 and Cisco is not OpenSource friendly.
Cisco sold it to Belkin in 2013 and Belkin was bought by Foxcon in 2018.
Always remember. "the key to job security is product obscurity." Making support harder keeps people from making your products last longer. If the products last longer then people will not buy the newer version as quickly and your stock-options may suffer.
Make it too crappy and not last long enough and people won't buy another product from you again. It needs a balance at least as long as you have any compatition. -- Len Sorensen