Re: Open hardware wireless cards

Paul Jakma
2005-01-08T12:04:05Z

On Thu, 6 Jan 2005, Jim Nelson wrote:

> Open-source drivers would make it trivial to make the hardware operate beyond
> its legal limits - and could potentially land them in trouble with the
> FCC/whatever.

This doesnt hold up at all, because the *closed* vendor software for
some 802.11? radios will give you option to set the 'country' (and
hence power), eg Netgear WG602v2 (an ISL3893 running Linux +
proprietary mini-RTOS for the 802.11 bits + proprietary Linux side
drivers to communicate between the two.).

Also, doesnt the USA have higher limits than most other countries? So
the problem if anything would arise in /other/ regulatory domains,
not FCC/USA.

regards,
--
Paul Jakma paul@clubi.ie paul@jakma.org Key ID: 64A2FF6A
Fortune:
Democracy is the name we give the people whenever we need them.
-- Arman de Caillavet, 1913