Good question. I don't follow Cisco closely, but it may simply be the EULA (and the team of legal attack dogs behind it).
It may also be the implicit expectation that computers are made to run other software while switches are closed-case boxes engineered as a single unit. This is pretty stupid to most engineers, because there isn't much technical difference between the two, but sometimes legal things work that way. It's also possible that Cisco has an antitrust suit in it's future (but probably only under a Democratic administration).
It may also be the implicit expectation that computers are made to run other software while switches are closed-case boxes engineered as a single unit. This is pretty stupid to most engineers, because there isn't much technical difference between the two, but sometimes legal things work that way. It's also possible that Cisco has an antitrust suit in it's future (but probably only under a Democratic administration).