<to...@tuxteam.de> wrote: > > On Thu, Jun 08, 2017 at 10:17:07AM -0000, Dan Purgert wrote: >> David Christensen wrote: >> > On 06/05/2017 07:14 PM, David Christensen wrote: >> >> I am looking for a FOSS-friendly Wireless Access Point (WAP) ... >> > >> > Thanks everyone for the replies and information. I'll need to re-read >> > everything, STFW, and mull it over. >> >> Bear in mind that certain countries (e.g. the USA) impose limits on the >> devices such that the actual radio driver MUST be a binary blob. > > As far as I understand, it's more complicated: The FCC just states that > the radio behaves according to specified parameters (e.g. maximum tramsmit > power). > [...] > The FCC also stated that it shouldn't be "too easy" for an end user to > bypass the parameter limits. >
Actually, the FCC states that the end user cannot, through the driver (or firmware updates) be able to choose "non-USA" channels / Tx / etc. As a result, you get two things: 1. Drivers from most manufacturers are binary blobs. 2. "-US" versions of products are in circulation that're somehow hardware locked to only allow the selection of the "US" country code. -- |_|O|_| Registered Linux user #585947 |_|_|O| Github: https://github.com/dpurgert |O|O|O| PGP: 05CA 9A50 3F2E 1335 4DC5 4AEE 8E11 DDF3 1279 A281