Wificom Technologies today announced its release of the SAB Gateway software as Open Source onto the world’s largest Open Source software development website SourceForge.net.
SAB Gateway is a versatile WLAN access controller implemented in Perl and requires only a low-performance linux computer to run, which also makes it embeddable into small Internet access devices. It delivers easy-to-use broadband access at the wireless hotspot without requiring the end-user to install any client-side software. The SAB Gateway is from March 2004 onwards released under the GNU General Public License (GPL) on SourceForge.net.

In parallel with the GPL distribution, the company is offering its SAB Gateway to third parties such as gateway vendors to integrate, free of any royalties.

Fabian Ritzmann, Product Development Manager of Wificom, said Wificom’s core business is clearly to focus on developing the central service management product SAB Server and to take an active role in the roaming market. Wificom will continue to support SAB Gateway and help to foster an active Open Source community around SAB Gateway.

“For us it is imperative to increase the footprint of SAB Server-compatible gateways on the public broadband access market. In this process our partnership with gateways vendors is key. In addition to already existing strong partnerships we believe that releasing the SAB Gateway software as Open Source will prove to fit some of our clients wanting to further develop their own gateway products or adding such code onto existing equipment already available in the hotspot. The basic idea behind Open Source is very simple: when programmers can read, redistribute, and modify the source code, the software rapidly evolves to match the business needs very closely.”

Wificom is today the backend supplier supporting the highest number of external gateways with its SAB Server including world-leading public access gateways from vendors such as Gemtek Systems, Colubris Networks, Proxim and Nomadix.
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