On Sat, Jan 16, 2021 at 08:40:53PM -0500, Celejar wrote: [...] > I think you're conflating two senses of wireless 'firmware' - the kind > that runs on the wireless chipset itself (i.e., the stuff that Debian > ships in its free and non-free 'firmware' packages), and the kind that > runs on the system containing wireless hardware (e.g., WiFi OEM's stock > firmware, OpenWrt, etc.). Thanks for /that/ reminder. I totally forgot that, for a "box" the whole thing (what we consider an operating system) also runs as "firmware". It's "firmwares all the way down" [1]. > The article you link to was a scare about the latter, which never > really materialized: Exactly. > https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2016/08/fcc-forces-tp-link-to-support-open-source-firmware-on-routers/ And... to those who now say "but you can't bypass your local regulations from the OEM stock firmware (what we tend to call the operating system)". Yes, you can. Just tell that firmware downstairs that you are in a different jurisdiction [1], where you are allowed to spew out a couple of watts more, or use that nice channel. Cheers [1] Technically, this is called "regulatory domain" and search engines readily spew out lots of hits for that, e.g. https://wifibond.com/2016/10/26/regulatory-domain-and-compliance/ It's one of those curious cases where legal stakes, sovereignity questions, user rights and corporate interests & greed wedge in a very strange way. - t
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