'Economist' Calls For Open WiFi Specs

DavidNWelton writes "An interesting and well thought-out call for Wifi manufacturers to open up their specs, at least partially, written by The Economist. 'So it is hard to see what the problem is beyond a dog-in-the-mangerish desire not to give anything away. Time to open it up, boys.'"

Comments

Re:don't make no sense

[JeremyALogan]

The FCC doesn't have any say, what-so-ever, over this. You could start a company tomorrow making cards that'll transmit on any frequency and even if they don't like it there's nothing they can do. Now, that being said, if I were to purchase one of your cards and start illegally broadcasting on restricted frequencies then they're free to nail my ass to the wall because I have then broken the law.

If you don't believe me then how about this... anyone (in the United States, at least) can buy a ham radio that'll broadcast on all types of frequencies that the general public isn't allowed to use. And yes... there are "computer controlled" ones.

I really hate seing people use this excuse to protect the companies when it really has no merit.

Re:In other news, pot calls kettle black

[iworm]

You are factually correct but very unfair. I quote from The Economist:

Why is it anonymous? Many hands write The Economist, but it speaks with a collective voice. Leaders are discussed, often disputed, each week in meetings that are open to all members of the editorial staff. Journalists often co-operate on articles. And some articles are heavily edited. The main reason for anonymity, however, is a belief that what is written is more important than who writes it. As Geoffrey Crowther, editor from 1938 to 1956, put it, anonymity keeps the editor "not the master but the servant of something far greater than himself. You can call that ancestor-worship if you wish, but it gives to the paper an astonishing momentum of thought and principle."

Closed drivers should work if they won't open them

[hazee]

When the manufacturers refuse to open up the specs for their hardware, then there's an implicit understanding that they will at least supply working (closed) drivers of their own.

So I may not be able to get the device to work under Linux, or some other OS that wasn't listed on the box, but at least I'll be able to run it under Windows, as advertised.

Unfortunately, the driver for my particular card (Netgear WG511) is one of the worst pieces of crap that I've ever had the mispleasure of having to use.

By way of example, when run under Win 2K, it doesn't "remember" the settings, such as WEP keys, unless you're running as Admin. Netgear's advice has to be seen to be believed - they have a web page that tells you that you need to run with Administrator privileges to avoid the issue, and ON THE SAME PAGE, tells you how dangerous it is to run with admin privileges...

This same piece of crap utility loads itself into the system tray at startup, and continues to soak up processor time for no readily apparent reason - - you can kill it, and the wireless link continues to function.

This same utility also regularly sends packets out to numerical addresses on the web. Spyware, who knows?

In summary, if the manufacturers can't or won't supply working drivers, then the whole product they're selling is essentially fraudulent - they're promising something that they're not delivering.

So I believe that they should be FORCED to open the drivers.