Date: Thu, 24 Dec 2015 22:23:24 -0600
From: Josh Reynolds <josh@kyneticwifi.com>
To: mate csaba <matecs@niif.hu>
Cc: cs@nop.hu, NANOG <nanog@nanog.org>
Subject: Re: announcement of freerouter
Message-ID:
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rsS8T6YQ7Fsg@mail.gmail.com>
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RouterOS is an existing product by MikroTik.
Mate Csaba's message had nothing to do with MikroTik RouterOS (from Latvia,
which doesn't include IS-IS support). And Mikrotik RouterOS isn't free. 
Why was this response about RouterOS? (Am I missing something?)
The posted presentations/slides touch upon the feature set of FreeRtr
(which is similiar to MT RouterOS, but which many production-ready Network
OSes have).
http://freerouter.nop.hu/present.html
And CLI output examples:
http://freerouter.nop.hu/present.html
> hi,
> pleased to announce a stable release of freerouter.
Neat.
Mike,
Csaba's front page previously described the software as being a 'routerOS', like in the very first sentence on the page. I'm assuming that the person who complained about that didn't read past the first sentence and just wanted to troll. It's obvious to me that decades of work have gone into this free router software, and the term router OS was just being used to describe what the software does - an OS for a router.
It looks to me like the author has a deep understanding of networking to be able to implement all this from scratch and I think we can learn a lot from reading this code. He's also giving it away for free, which is hard to argue with.
-Laszlo
Mike,
Csaba's front page previously described the software as being a
'routerOS', like in the very first sentence on the page. I'm assuming that
the person who complained about that didn't read past the first sentence
and just wanted to troll. It's obvious to me that decades of work have
gone into this free router software, and the term router OS was just being
used to describe what the software does - an OS for a router.
Thanks for the clarification.
I did miss that particular sentence with 'router OS'.
But perusal of two or three of freerouter's pages showed it to be more
Cisco-like (much like Quagga's CLI syntax mimics Cisco IOS command syntax)
than Mikrotik RouterOS.
While freerouter != Mikrotik RouterOS,
I can't disagree that Mikrotik RouterOS does deliver quite the bang for the
buck.
It looks to me like the author has a deep understanding of networking to
be able to implement all this from scratch and I think we can learn a lot
from reading this code. He's also giving it away for free, which is hard
to argue with.
Yes. Another alternative and a free one at that.
It wasn't about trolling, it was about legitimate prior art and reasonably
so. Also, there's potentially a confusing association between the two.
I'm glad the terminology was removed.
Since it's an operating system for routing IP, maybe they could call it "IP operating system", styled Ios, to prevent confusion with IOS and iOS.
Lawyers gotta eat too...
-r
At the time of the announcement, this is what the page looked like (GIF attachment attempted).
In fairness, when I first looked at the page, I was confused too.
It said it ran as a “Router OS Process” which made me think that it was
somehow a virtual router that ran inside the Mikrotik operating system
known as Router SO and I was scratching my head going:
B: Why would you want it to?
Now, realizing that the guy probably made an honest mistake without realizing
he was using someone else’s trade name in the process, it makes much more sense.
Confusing, but in the end, much ado about nothing[1] all around.
Owen
[1] No intent here to misuse any intellectual property of any Bard or other person.
Thanks for clearing it up, I was still confused what Mikrotik's OS had to
do with it.
Josh Luthman
Office: 937-552-2340
Direct: 937-552-2343
1100 Wayne St
Suite 1337
Troy, OH 45373
In fairness, when I first looked at the page, I was confused too.
That content of web page(s) must have been altered between when Josh R. and
I viewed it.
It said it ran as a “Router OS Process” which made me think that it was
somehow a virtual router that ran inside the Mikrotik operating system
known as Router SO and I was scratching my head going:
A: How can that possibly work?
B: Why would you want it to?
Now, realizing that the guy probably made an honest mistake without
realizing
he was using someone else’s trade name in the process, it makes much more
sense.
Confusing, but in the end, much ado about nothing[1] all around.
yep
Keeping us on our toes.
Amazing what the proprietary appropriation of a single Word can do 
-mel
It wasn't about trolling, it was about legitimate prior art and reasonably
so. Also, there's potentially a confusing association between the two.
I'm glad the terminology was removed.
Since it's an operating system for routing IP, maybe they could call it "IP operating system", styled Ios, to prevent confusion with IOS and iOS.
And not to be confused with IoS,
the Internet of Shit: 
ok kids. the guy looks to have made a rather hot and unusually complete
contribution. perhaps picking on his spelling is not productive.
randy
That's all I keep thinking...
Mark.
Amazing what the proprietary appropriation of a single Word can do
Yes.... I'm quite bothered by that. As far as I'm concerned "Router
OS" refers to whatever operating system drives a router.
Just like "Computer OS" is not referring to a specific piece of
software, but it's a description of a software's role within a
system.
To suggest "Router OS" refers to a specific product, is like
suggesting "Bottled Water" refers to a specific brand of packaged
liquid.
I believe Mikrotik is using "RouterOS" and "RouterBOARD" as registered trademarks, not generic "router os".
The problem however is, that according to google search (I may be wrong here), the trademark was eventually never registered:
https://trademarks.justia.com/771/58/routeros-77158105.html
Anyway, let's concentrate on the source code and solution provided (further referred as "meat"), and let parties involved sort out the trademarks, copyrights and other issues (further referred as to "slack" ;)) themselves.
Hence, my statement of "prior art" and not TM, as they never followed up on
it
