[ath9k-devel] Regulatory domains

[Luis R. Rodriguez <lrodriguez@atheros.com>]

On Wed, Feb 23, 2011 at 12:40:14PM -0800, Peter Stuge wrote:
> Luis R. Rodriguez wrote:
> > Unfortunately due to regulatory considerations which have also come
> > under recent stress [4] we cannot feature-wise let users overwrite
> > their own EEPROM, even if they know better.
> 
> I think this is good in the driver, but there was some discussion
> about writing to the EEPROM from outside the driver.

We cannot take that step for a while and specifically some countries
explicitly prohibit this.

> > This is simply the state of affairs today, but hopefully would
> > change.
> 
> That external tool for changing EEPROM contents, or at least reg
> domain, would avoid punishing users,

No one is punishing users, at least intentionally, the design
philosophy assumes that when you get your 802.11 card it is
programmed correctly. This proves to be wrong at times, but
I'm just stating the facts and current industry and regulatory
assumptions.

>  while work continues on changing
> state of affairs for the future.

If regulatory agencies would allow for such tools to be distributed
and pass liability down to the user if they do this, that likely
would make it possible to release this sort of code, but its not
the case today.

> > The way I see it, we should be dynamicaly figuring out our location
> > using GPS / other trusted feeds and propagate this to 802.11
> > devices
> 
> If you exclude user input from that set of trusted feeds you just
> make yourself a lot of unfriends. :\

Regulatory agencies like the FCC have made it 100% clear that user input
cannot be supported as a feature for selecting your country, see:

http://wireless.kernel.org/en/developers/Regulatory/CRDA#Helping_compliance_by_allowing_to_change_regulatory_domains

> > you can .. verify the EEPROM contents of a card you purchase to
> > ensure it fits your own country.
> 
> That's ridiculous.

Agreed but its what we have today. In the end I believe we stand to gain
if we were able to legally change dynamically the regulatory domain, I'd
prefer to leave the user out of this, the user does not need to be involved,
and we can use new techniques to figure with close 100% realiability your
location. I do believe this will help with communications but its just the
state where we are today.

  Luis