[Battlemesh] FCC Rules?

Benjamin Henrion zoobab at gmail.com
Mon Nov 16 23:00:29 CET 2015


On Mon, Nov 16, 2015 at 10:44 PM, Ben West <ben at gowasabi.net> wrote:
> There is an active thread about this over at the Purple Foundation listserv
> for the issue, this post in particular:
> http://lists.prplfoundation.org/pipermail/fcc/2015-November/000455.html
>
> Heavily summarized salient points appear to be:
> - FCC doesn't grasp that their proposed requirements effectively require
> locked down firmware per how cheap personal electronics like wifi routers
> are built.  I.e. they're not mobile phones.
> - FCC likewise doesn't grasp that manufacturers have no incentive whatsoever
> to increase the complexity (and cost) of such cheap products to meet any new
> rules, beyond the easiest option of simply locking the firmware.
>
> That thread post in particular describes possible benefit of a hypothetical
> manufacturer having open firmware certified.

That was also my understanding, after the PR spin doctoring that was
relayed by websites such as Hackaday:

http://hackaday.com/2015/11/14/fcc-clears-the-air-with-wi-fi-software-updates-run-on-fri/

"[Julias Knapp], chief of the FCC’s Office of Engineering and
Technology has since clarified the Commission’s position. In response
to the deluge of comments to the FCC’s Notice of Proposed Rulemaking,
the phrase, ‘protected from flashing… Open Source firmware” has been
removed from the upcoming regulation. There’s new, narrow wording
(PDF) in this version that better completes the Commission’s goal of
stopping overpowered radios without encroching on the Open Source
firmware scene. The people spoke, and the FCC listened — democracy at
work."

This is plain wrong message.

-- 
Benjamin Henrion <bhenrion at ffii.org>
FFII Brussels - +32-484-566109 - +32-2-3500762
"In July 2005, after several failed attempts to legalise software
patents in Europe, the patent establishment changed its strategy.
Instead of explicitly seeking to sanction the patentability of
software, they are now seeking to create a central European patent
court, which would establish and enforce patentability rules in their
favor, without any possibility of correction by competing courts or
democratically elected legislators."



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