Netgear Releases Open Source Wireless-G Router

Let's state a bit of the obvious, Linux, in all its various incarnations, is becoming more pervasive every day.  From traditional desktop distros, to its omnipotent place in the embedded space -- from hand-helds to mission critical appliances in the enterprise, everywhere you look Linux is making inroads.  One of the places you may not even have realized you were running Linux, is your home or office wireless router.  What embedded realtime OS is running those configuration panels you mess around with when you want to reset that WEP key or punch a port open for gaming?  You guessed it, the Peguin strikes again.  In fact, the folks at Netgear seem to be making a business model out of it, giving folks inclind the ability to stick their heads under the hood for a look around and some customization.  The Netgear WGR614L Open Source Router made its debut recently and it looks pretty interesting to be sure. 

 

"Enjoy popular community firmwares and rich feature sets with the WGR614L from Netgear. The WGR614L open source router is based on a Linux platform and is highly customizable. It features an overclockable 240 MHz processor. A variety of third party firmware packages can be used."

Who knows, maybe Netgear will even realize a few stray design wins with this product in applications they haven't sold to before.  What's this?  It overclocks too?  Hmm...  Can we take Gig-E links and crank them up to 10G?  Whoa there, don't go losing your head Nigel (but this one goes to 11...).  It seems someone in marketing was on the ball at Netgear.  Folks have been hacking router firmware for what seems like decades now.  Might as well let them have cake and eat it too.