On 02/08/2012 10:21 PM, [email protected] wrote:
We are currently figuring out the financials to have more manufactured. It isn't cheap. There is a little stock left with the AR9170 chipset anywhere and the prices are skyrocketing. We got a hold of a small quantity recently to head off the ever increasing price of these adapters. There were maybe 800 adapters a few months ago from one of our suppliers. Last month there were maybe 200. We bought most of them. Now there are none left. There are a few other sources although the prices are going to skyrocket everywhere. They have already doubled in price. We are already seeing companies taking advantage of this scarcity with $120+ USD price points.
Sounds difficult! Hopefully there will be more wireless adapters with free firmware/drivers in the future (how can we help that happen?). I have a laptop with Intel Centrino Wireless N 6150 which of course requires a non-free blob. The license in there mentions that you can't reverse engineer it etc... Does it make it illegal to make a free alternative? Surely there must be some way to figure out how it has been done, but if figuring 'it' out is illegal then we're stuck. Just curious, why do manufacturers do that? What are they afraid of? What advantage does it give them? Is competition their only worry? What can we do to increase the pressure on those manufacturers? Emailing?
