1) Froom the GPL:

"...The "Program", below,
refers to any such program or work, and a "work based on the Program"
means either the Program or any derivative work under copyright law:
that is to say, a work containing the Program or a portion of it..."

Clearly, the firmware image on the Linksys router is a "work" containing the "Program"

2) From the GPL:

"...But when you
distribute the same sections as part of a whole which is a work based
on the Program, the distribution of the whole must be on the terms of
this License, whose permissions for other licensees extend to the
entire whole, and thus to each and every part regardless of who wrote it...."

This is in Section 2, under it, ALL files that make up the Linksys firmware are automatically GPLed because they are "part of a whole"

In summary, if the Linksys firmware was easily taken apart and the individual pieces easily modified, then the entire firmware would not be GPL. But because it isn't, the firmware, and all drivers and such in it, are under GPL.

- Ted Mittelstaedt
- Author, FreeBSD Corporate Networker's Guide

It is a single unified file, it cannot be eas