The first one is free

Interesting post over at Gulfstream (no permalink, sorry) about free software that doesn’t seem so free from a company called Sveasoft:

Sveasoft have produced a new firmware for a Linksys wireless router. The software, like the original software, is based on Linux, and is licensed under the GPL: once you own a copy, you’re free to give it to anyone you want. However, Sveasoft themselves will only give you a copy of “pre-release” version of their software if you pay to “subscribe” to this service. Ordinarily they wouldn’t be able to charge very much for their software, because once one person has a copy of the software, they are legally allowed to give it to all their friends. (They could also sell it for less than Sveasoft charges.) However, the deal with Sveasoft is that if you do this, they won’t sell you newer versions of their software. According to the FSF, this is quite okay.

Sveasoft will give you their pre-release software for free and allow you to distribute it, but if you do, you can’t get support or buy future versions of the pre-release software. When I first read about this, it seemed to run counter to the free software philosophy, but upon further reflection, I don’t see any real technical or philosophical objections to what Sveasoft is doing.