Messages in this thread | | | From | Norbert van Nobelen <> | Subject | Re: Open hardware wireless cards | Date | Thu, 6 Jan 2005 22:42:54 +0100 |
| |
It is an excuse: The hardware is not capable of more output than the legal limit. The external antenna is an illegal addition, which has nothing to do with opensource. It is a pretty easy mod.
On Thursday 06 January 2005 22:39, you wrote: > 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. - To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in the body of a message to majordomo@vger.kernel.org More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html Please read the FAQ at http://www.tux.org/lkml/
| |