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

[andyprough]

i didn't say "different card on same chipset", i said "same card under different brand"

That is literally the problem - buy the "same card" for $15 on ebay, and it still fails on a librebooted Thinkpad. Buy it again and again and hope for a lucky winner. There are small differences in version numbers that will leave you stuck with a worthless card. That's why a $60 price tag is not outrageous, if you could guarantee it would work the first time and every time.

Your point about closed hardware sounds like wishful thinking. What did you have in mind? A Talos II workstation from Raptor? Those are great, but they aren't laptops. I want one, badly, but I can't take it on a road trip very easily.

[fguerraz]

Not a single requirement or suggestion in that dcoument precludes the vendor providing source code for a driver. Obviously the vendor may choose not to do so, but that's not because it is mandated by the FCC.

That's just bad faith. Try to imagin how that would fly in court.

[aht0]

EEPROM on Atheros "n" cards can be re-written without soldering. I believe AR9462 are first ones where it's impossible due OTP EEPROM.

Meaning, something like AR928x can be messed with a lot, see hackintosh forums for modifying hw id.

[brouhaha]

That's just bad faith. Try to imagin how that would fly in court.

It's not in any way bad faith. The FCC requires that an end user not be able to change the setting. Recompiling a driver isn't something an end user is expected to do. Many 802.11 chipset device drivers already ship as open source, and yet would easily allow someone who recompiles the drivers to operate outside the frequency or power limits, or disable radar avoidance. The FCC has not initiated enforcement actoins against any of the vendors selling those, but they have initiated enforcement actions against vendors selling products that allow an end user to do such things without recompiling a driver.

Either of us could bloviate about our interpretations of the FCC regulations until we're blue in the face, but in the absence of FCC publications stating a clear position on open source drivers, the history of enforcement actions is the only definitive information.

[fguerraz]

Either of us could bloviate about our interpretations of the FCC regulations until we're blue in the face, but in the absence of FCC publications stating a clear position on open source drivers, the history of enforcement actions is the only definitive information.

No, really, show me an example I'm very interested: name and provide documentary evidence for one chipset that allows you to change the power table for the DFS channels or disable radar avoidance, without reverse-engineering a closed source firmware/driver blob. I'll buy the device today and give you a public apology on this forum