A little background on this. Simon- another person working on free software
router software brought this to the attention of certain media outlets a
month ago maybe. Since that time I started reaching out to various
organizations and groups who would be concerned about this issue and got
people talking about how we can work together to protest these initiatives.
The EFF, FSF, OpenWRT, LibreCMC, Software Freedom Law Center, Qualcomm, the
prpl foundation, and other groups/people are in the loop and involved now.
Basically the FCC is trying to force companies that manufacture wifi devices
to lock them down so that downstream users and developers can't change the
firmware. They specifically ask manufacturers how they plan to prevent third
party firmware from being installed. They use the example of DD-WRT, but it
would impact all other firmwares including OpenWRT and LibreCMC.
Some have said otherwise,
"FCC is only wanting to control VERY SPECIFIC things, like transmission power
and frequency. The FCC has zero interest in any other aspect of the devices.
The FCC ONLY cares about the settings that have any (direct) impact on the RF
transmissions."
Unfortunately that's utter nonsense.
In reality the regulation apply to everything. Wifi in your computer,
bluetooth, cell phones, etc. Literally everything would be negatively
impacted.
We need to save wifi!
Please take the time to read the link above and send in comments. We need to
get an overwhelming amount of backlash against this or you wouldn't have
control over your devices/computers/etc going forward.
Please read up on the issue and start getting the word out. Talk to any media
outlets that will listen. Send them emails. Call them. There is very little
time to get people to send in FCC comments.
At this point we did get the FCC to extend the deadline for comments until
October, but we need a *ton* of publicity to actually get them to do
anything. And this won't be over after the comments are in because there are
already rules which are hindering installation of third party firmware now in
effect. These rules just clarify older rules basically and extend them to
*everything*.
