Re: Open hardware wireless cards

Jim Nelson
2005-01-06T21:43:50Z

Lee Revell wrote:
> On Thu, 2005-01-06 at 20:32 +0100, Norbert van Nobelen wrote:
>
>>100mWatt antenna (-: Gives 4 mile range (-:
>>Make it USB powered (-: (so that the pcmcia card does not overheat!!)
>
>
> Ah, this reminds me, isn't there some kind of issue with open source
> wireless and FCC (or whatever your local equivalent is) regulations? Or
> was that just an excuse the vendors used for their closed source
> drivers?
>
> Lee
>

A little of both, methinks. Most vendors build their hardware to the most
powerful that any law (or engineering limits) will allow. They then use
country-specific drivers to keep tha hardware operating within legal limits.

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.
IANAL, but I'm pretty sure that there hasn't been a case of open-source wireless
drivers tweaked beyond the legal limits landing someone with a fine.