hi guys
I was wondering if mikrotik routeros is based on linux kernel?
it appears to be so by the method of handling networking...

thanks

Yes.
A hardened kernel.

so based on that mikrotik must share the sourcecode? or is it different licensing?

Read license.txt included in the zip files.

Sam

Basically, they will send you a CD with all the open source stuff they have touched, including the Linux kernel.

But, they won't send you the code for their higher-level closed source stuff, obviously.

--Eric

The real power of Mikrotik lays in the fact that it is based on linux kernel. Imagine a win-based Router OS It will suprise you with blue-screen very often

Sounds perfectly fair to me !!!

You can't run a buisness and keep poeple fed if you give away all of your work..

Come on people, they need to make a living as well...

If someonre wants to write code as a hobby or to "show off" or just "help man kind" then more power to them!

Take DUDE,, They could charge for it, but they chose not to, can you imagine the cost of licensing OpenView ?? I think most of us out here could NOT afford it..

In short, if you can't afford under $50 US for a software product that replaces (very well I say,,,) MANY network / security devices and that allows many people to make a good living by using it to provide needed services to many comumities, then GET A LIFE...

Sorry for the soap box, but I have heard this one before and I would not guess that the person asking would be willing to go broke while others profited by using their products or used their source code to launch a buisness to compete with them.. It just does not make sense...

Just my two cents (US) worth...

Admin please remove if too rough...

Craig

It sounds fair to me as well, and it certainly meets the requirements of the GPL.

I don't think anyone was asking for MT's propritary code, just the GPL / Other OSS stuff.
If you want to take a look at their kernel modifications, they provide a means for you to do that, all on the up and up.

So, why the rant? I don't see anyone asking for something for nothing, nor claiming that MT has to release their home-grown code.

--Eric

Yes.
A hardened kernel.

What do you mean?

The real power of Mikrotik lays in the fact that it is based on linux kernel. Imagine a win-based Router OS It will suprise you with blue-screen very often

I can. It probably wouldn't blue-screen very often if done right.
However windows' network stack is differently built than linux.
Linux' network stack is monolithic while Windows' is not very monolithic at all. Linux' network stack performs great on most PC systems, however Windows' was designed to cover anything from the small to the extremely large. They won't maintain two stacks thus it has to built differently. Since the same stack goes in Windows 2003 and in XP Home edition and neither are designed to be routers but instead servers or clients it is designed to be efficient (enough) on home computers and large server systems with 10 or more cpus.
It will actually do alot of the processing in userland instead of kernel meaning you don't need to add much syncronization code. This in turn turns up the efficiency in multi processor environments.
In short, a windows system running X cpus can and will outperform linux running X cpus at serving, not routing.

What kind of system this would be i wouldn't know as i can't afford anything supporting 10, 20 or 64 cpu's

Yes.
A hardened kernel.

What do you mean?

They boiled it for 8min, rather than 4min.

:-)

The real power of Mikrotik lays in the fact that it is based on linux kernel. Imagine a win-based Router OS :P It will suprise you with blue-screen very often :P

I can. It probably wouldn't blue-screen very often if done right.
However windows' network stack is differently built than linux.
Linux' network stack is monolithic while Windows' is not very monolithic at all. Linux' network stack performs great on most PC systems, however Windows' was designed to cover anything from the small to the extremely large. They won't maintain two stacks thus it has to built differently. Since the same stack goes in Windows 2003 and in XP Home edition and neither are designed to be routers but instead servers or clients it is designed to be efficient (enough) on home computers and large server systems with 10 or more cpus.
It will actually do alot of the processing in userland instead of kernel meaning you don't need to add much syncronization code. This in turn turns up the efficiency in multi processor environments.
In short, a windows system running X cpus can and will outperform linux running X cpus at serving, not routing.

What kind of system this would be i wouldn't know as i can't afford anything supporting 10, 20 or 64 cpu's :D

Both the Linux and Windows stacks are decendants of the old BSD4.4-lite sockets stack. If you want a significantly more flexable, scalable, confusing, and mostly forgotton stack, look to SysV Streams. The IBM s/3x0 and as/400 stacks are quite different beasts as well, and they are _much_ higher performance.

If I had anything with that 64 CPUs, I wouldn't let Linux _or_ Windows anywhere near it. :)

--Eric

Both the Linux and Windows stacks are decendants of the old BSD4.4-lite sockets stack. If you want a significantly more flexable, scalable, confusing, and mostly forgotton stack, look to SysV Streams. The IBM s/3x0 and as/400 stacks are quite different beasts as well, and they are _much_ higher performance.

If I had anything with that 64 CPUs, I wouldn't let Linux _or_ Windows anywhere near it.

Both are decendants of the same implementation but both have evolved in two different ways. The others you mentioned have different stacks indeed.

Let me give just one example of what i mean:

In Linux the tcp packets are handled in kernel running in unrestricted mode. In Windows the packets are handled in a mode inbetween unrestricted (ring0) and restricted (ring3) before eventually leaving the computer (outbound packets) or is passed to a program (inbound packets).

Sorry for the harsh post, but there have been "demands" before that MikroTik "must" release everything...

I just wanted to get that idea nipped...

I cant think of a product priced as reasonably that is the product of harder work..

You have to admit that MANY small companies / WISPS and others would not be in buisness if it werrent for MikroTik products...

Craig

well the main point is licensing issue...
I know that one of Linksys AP was linux based as there are
hundreds of many electronic devices including access point
are but nobody will follow them to ask what is it you have used.

I used to think open source means you can use it in your project
and sell it but it wasn't like that once I learnt more about gpl and
all the licensing...

if you're using someone else's work as your platform and you're not
writing your own from sctrach then you must respect the owner's
licensing or it will be illegal...

but maybe mikrotik guys have some kinda deal with linus torvalds himself
or maybe they did not used linux kernel at all or maybe it is just
legal to use linux for start and not release your source code
but at least for LinkSYS it was not the same thing

of course in that case whoever worked on improvement on mikrotik
or for example linksys wrt54g will loose his benefits but it was not
legal to work on it at first place...

or maybe you can explain me better how this licensing works that
one company will force to do so and another is not...

of course after WRT54G get to be open sourced there was a start
point of many other third party and even enterprise level software
written for it such as spotnik and alot of other open source...

I've even seen people ran amazing services and stuff on it by using linux
and a lot of modification to the code and most of all it became
100 times more stable than it was before when everybody
could tweak it and debug it.

thanks

PS:I'm looking for some official responses

Not really an official response in any way, but trying to give a short(!) summary:

If you are using GPL code (the GPL is one of the most often used open source licenses) in a product (be it commercial or not!) and you do alter the code in any way, you are obliged to give the sources for this to everyone who wants them. There are several different methods mentioned in the GPL, one of those being that interested parties have to write you and you can send them everything on CD. You may take some money for that to cover the work you have with that (but obviously NOT to earn something from distributing the source code).

If you build a product that combines GPL code and code you have written on your own (like the hotspot, or WinBox), you are of course NOT obliged to give out that source code to anyone.
It can be a challenge to find the right interpretation for the word "combining" I used in the first sentence in this paragraph. You have to read the GPL very carefully to decide if your program is a usage/modification of GPL'ed code that requires you to release the source or not. I won't discuss this further here, and I'm not a GPL-savy lawyer at all.

But MikroTik does behave correctly: The offer you to send the source code of used GPL (open source) software on a CD-ROM if you ask them to. They want to have their expenses/work to do so covered by you. The will NOT give out source code for anything proprietary which is MikroTiks' own intellectual work.

And I just can emphasize what others have already posted in this thread: The license fees for MikroTik RouterOS are REALLY reasonable if you think of what you get. Compare that to anything like dedicated routers/firewalls/... and you'll stop asking about the price ...

Just my two (Euro-) Cent...

Best regards,
Christian Meis

Oh, that's the danger in writing long posts in vivid threads - others might be finished typing before you are

Best regards,
Christian Meis

again, christian

pah! writing one line SHOULD be quicker than my post ...

i don't see the reason, too.

I CAN imagine reasons to ask for parts of your proprietary code, though Well knowing that that's out of range normally. But there have been requests to open at least the protocol (not the source code) for WinBox communications (to write own apps to interface with RouterOS in other ways than the rather crude expect-style scripts or the like). Or NStreme, to be able to create a Windows driver for it...

Best regards,
Christian Meis

And hey…. Here a stupid question from silly me… Madwifi… where is it? It’s not in the list…. You have done a good job with it… y not expand on that…

Just curious.. I pose no threat as a programmer for I am a humble one!

Ohh.. Thought so but was not sure if somebody told me that or if we talked about it before… it shows... different in function… But who is the good boy in atheros…? I wonder….hihihihi

@ hellbound ....If you want to help the open source world, get Atheros to release information about their cards so you won't need to use the HAL etc .
Anyway what more do you need ? Buy a Routerboard,get Mikrotik OS preinstalled ready to go...compare that to say.... buy a WRAP + then buy St**OS (then cry when OSPF doesnt work and it crashes when you go adjust radiocards )

@ hellbound ....If you want to help the open source world, get Atheros to release information about their cards so you won't need to use the HAL etc .
Anyway what more do you need ? Buy a Routerboard,get Mikrotik OS preinstalled ready to go...compare that to say.... buy a WRAP + then buy St**OS (then cry when OSPF doesnt work and it crashes when you go adjust radiocards )

well, one thing for sure atheros didn't use linux, and I'm not sure your mentioned OS did so but was just wondering about the licensing facts and why is it this way... my question will not really help open source in any way...

what is HAL anyway?

@ hellbound ....If you want to help the open source world, get Atheros to release information about their cards so you won't need to use the HAL etc .
Anyway what more do you need ? Buy a Routerboard,get Mikrotik OS preinstalled ready to go...compare that to say.... buy a WRAP + then buy St**OS (then cry when OSPF doesnt work and it crashes when you go adjust radiocards )

well, one thing for sure atheros didn't use linux, and I'm not sure your mentioned OS did so but was just wondering about the licensing facts and why is it this way... my question will not really help open source in any way...

what is HAL anyway?

(H)ardware (A)bstraction (L)ayer.

And Atheros CANNOT release it to the public, as doing so would make it trivial to force the chips to output illegal RF.

As far as madwifi, it has some cool features MT is lacking, but all in all, it would seem MTs implementation is far superior.

With the GPL, it basically works out to this:

If you mix GPL code in with your own code, then yes, you are obligated to release those modification. However, if your code just links to GPL code, you are under no such obligation.

If this were not true, there could be NO possable commecial applications on Linux, and the GPL haters would be correct with their viral licencing nonsense.

Clearly, this is not the case. If you doubt this, go try and get Wolfram to give you the source to Mathmatica. Not going to happen.

--Eric

Whether or not Mikrotik makes source code available superficially means squat to 99.9% of users.

The more important question (to me, anyway!) is whether Mikrotik offers useful patches back to the kernel tree. That's where most of us could benefit from Mikrotik when it comes to the world outside a RouterOS image.

Fer instance, the MT implementation of EoIP is elegant and better yet seems to work flawlessly. It overcomes a problem that normally is taken care of with arp proxy daemons, DHCP relays and other messy stuff for those of us who are enamored of bridging wireless. Sure enough it's possible to hammer together the rough functional equivalent outside of RouterOS but the administrative result is distressingly messy compared to the MT EoIP implementation.

Maybe after some time we may find Mikrotik's EoIP available in the general Linux arena. That would be a feather in MT's cap.

On the other hand I know by personal experience that it's hard to find the time to shepherd patches and other contributions into projects when one has a fulltime occupation elsewhere...

So the question is - is there a way to add or run any kind of Linux modules or stuff on or alongside RouterOS? And if so, How?

So the question is - is there a way to add or run any kind of Linux modules or stuff on or alongside RouterOS? And if so, How?

No.