Free Software Foundation Endorses First Product Of 2020: A $59~79 USD 802.11n WiFi Card

[aht0]

Broadband speeds haven't exceeded 500Mbps for most people, technically "n" should suffice for most, unless they need faster speeds in LAN (local NAS or smth). Then you may as well upgrade your home infrastructure to 10G and keep "n" for fallback option and devices without physical connector.

[anarki2]

Good luck with that. ax cards are around $30 now.

[calc]

You mean BSD is trashing Linux pretty much everywhere save for PC?

Truth be told, I am not all that familiar with the *BSD situation, which is not to say there isn't a good answer to your question. It is probably timing, as impeded by legal woes or the highly conservative nature of the *BSD design philosophy, or even less user-friendliness than Linux.

🤣

By "everywhere" do you mean for some sort of embedded (hidden) use?

Because Linux, not BSD, is used at most companies for servers (along with Windows), most phones (Android), cars for their dash OS (both Android and embedded Linux), and lots of other places, etc.

BSD has existed longer than Linux but never really took off.

The GPL 'virus' is what got Linux there, not what impeded its spread.

[calc]

Good luck with that. ax cards are around $30 now.

Yea, you can get a well supported Intel AC 9260 for under $10 and Intel AX200 for under $15.

An N card for $79 is a bit high.

[madscientist159]

This card still has closed firmware as far as I can see, so why did it get RYF? Am I missing something?

Diluting the RYF trademark with closed firmware systems and devices is not a winning strategy here IMO. I've called for a multi tier system in the past, maybe it's time this happened -- something along the lines of Bronze for blobby firmware systems that at least stay on their side of the IOMMU and have open drivers, Silver for systems that only use minimal firmware blobs that can be reasonably reverse engineered with effort (i.e. a combination of open source and proprietary bits, where the open source bits are the majority of the firmware) , and Platinum for fully open firmware fully owner controlled systems (yes, there's a few on the market now, so the category is justified)?

I'm of course assuming anything requiring a signing key anywhere (regardless of whether firmware or software is locked) should be outright rejected from RYF. If not, the RYF mark would be utterly meaningless.

[andyprough]

This card still has closed firmware as far as I can see, so why did it get RYF? Am I missing something?

Diluting the RYF trademark with closed firmware systems and devices is not a winning strategy here IMO. I've called for a multi tier system in the past, maybe it's time this happened -- something along the lines of Bronze for blobby firmware systems that at least stay on their side of the IOMMU and have open drivers, Silver for systems that only use minimal firmware blobs that can be reasonably reverse engineered with effort (i.e. a combination of open source and proprietary bits, where the open source bits are the majority of the firmware) , and Platinum for fully open firmware fully owner controlled systems (yes, there's a few on the market now, so the category is justified)?

I'm of course assuming anything requiring a signing key anywhere (regardless of whether firmware or software is locked) should be outright rejected from RYF. If not, the RYF mark would be utterly meaningless.

These are excellent ideas. I doubt they will get implemented, but they would take a lot of the confusion out of the process.

[aht0]

By "everywhere" do you mean for some sort of embedded (hidden) use?
(a)Because Linux, not BSD, is used at most companies for servers (along with Windows), (b)most phones (Android), (c)cars for their dash OS (both Android and embedded Linux), and lots of other places, etc.

(a)By this few years old graph it looks like overwhelming majority enterprises with more than 50 employees are using mostly Windows Server. This btw does include intranet servers/servers without outside access.

(d)BSD has existed longer than Linux but never really took off.

(d)Wrong, BSD was bit more popular until early 2000's. Then FreeBSD somewhat fucked up it's SMP implementation and 5-RELEASE wasn't overly stable. Lot's of commercial users switched then to Linux, which had more stable SMP at the time and by the time FreeBSD figured out it's SMP around year later, train had already passed - once lost commercial users would not return without compelling reason.

Second thing that allowed Linux to gain great initial momentum was court case of the early nineties (USL vs BSDi) - future of the BSD's looked uncertain and lots of potential users went with Linux because they needed something and didn't/couldn't wait until courts finally decided. Linux had easy breathing space until 1994.

Third thing: Torvalds has said that had there been 386-compatible open-source and free BSD at the time, he would never have started with Linux kernel.
Summary: Success of Linux is thus to a degree caused by handful lucky coincidents.


(b) Are you SURE Android is "Linux"? Or is it distinct operating system on it's own? Is it "Linux" because it happens to contain modified Linux kernel? But Android also contains bunch of BSD code (libc)? Is it then maybe equally BSD (because modified BSD code is equal argument? Or not?) Which part of an OS is deciding and more important, kernel? libc? software around both? license?

(c) "brains" (ECU's) run OSEK variants or run on bare metal - safety critical, that's why. Infotainment can be random mobile and desktop OS. Usually MS (arguably most often), XNU or Android.

[pal666]

Since you don't participate in the FSF forums or other libre software forums Michael, you probably do not understand that the #1 complaint after someone libre-boots an old Thinkpad is that off-the-shelf wifi cards like the ones you describe usually do NOT work.

you can't libreboot thinkpad, it's hardware is closed and it can do with you whatever it wants. this is just one large libre circus

A lot of people would be willing to pay $59 or more for a wifi card that is known to work.

surely same card with different name is also known to work

[pal666]

(a)By this few years old graph it looks like overwhelming majority enterprises with more than 50 employees are using mostly Windows Server. This btw does include intranet servers/servers without outside access.

it doesn't include clouds which are predominantly linux, even azure

(b) Are you SURE Android is "Linux"? Or is it distinct operating system on it's own? Is it "Linux" because it happens to contain modified Linux kernel?

rhel also contains modified linux kernel. android is linux distro, somewhat different from usual desktop distro, but so are linux router distros etc. android kernel changes are pulled back to vanilla, i'm sure most of them already pulled.

But Android also contains bunch of BSD code (libc)?

linux kernel contains bunch of bsd code, so what?

Which part of an OS is deciding and more important, kernel?

kernel. you can have many libcs on one os

(c) "brains" (ECU's) run OSEK variants or run on bare metal - safety critical, that's why. Infotainment can be random mobile and desktop OS. Usually MS (arguably most often), XNU or Android.

microcontrollers can run anything, most of code is in infotainment. and of course it is most often linux. linux is the most used os everywhere except desktop. it is most used user-facing os(there are more androids than desktops). on desktop ms leverages their monopoly to ward off competition, but the only growing desktop segment is chromebooks. it's time for butthurt freebsd lovers to get a rest

[pal666]

By "everywhere" do you mean for some sort of embedded (hidden) use?

no, he means his hallucination. linux dominates(top spot, not just "better than freebsd") everywhere except desktops