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Does OSS Make The FCC Irrelevant?

Posted by Zonk on from the not-irrelevant-if-uncle-sam-doesn't-want-it-to-be dept.

JordanL writes "Daniel Fisher over at Forbes.com wonders whether or not OSS makes the FCC irrelevant. From the article: 'The agency might have made sense in the 1920s, Moglen says, when it was formed to assign specific frequencies to broadcasters so they wouldnt try to drown each other out by cranking up the transmitter power. But a new generation of intelligent radios, combined with equally clever computer networks, is making it possible for anybody to use the airwaves without interfering with anybody else.'"

3 of 256 comments (clear)

  1. Argh! by rovingeyes · · Score: 5, Interesting
    From TFA - "You cannot regulate code without going through the First Amendment-type balancing tests we have for any other type of speech," says Cindy Cohn, a lawyer at the Electronic Freedom Foundation in San Francisco. "Code is speech."

    Yeah right. If I go by your same logic and just for the sake of argument let us also assume that Napster was Open Source. Do you really think RIAA still wouldn't have crushed it? First Amendment my ass. Our "friendly" (and genius) lawmakers will find a loophole or make a law that First Amendment will violate. Yup the greenback has a voice, and it is fuckin' loud!

  2. Moglen knows beans on this topic by puzzled · · Score: 4, Interesting


      If we were a nation of boy scouts that might work, but experience in wireless band usage in the unlicensed ranges indicates this is not the case :-)

      Unlicensed wireless spectrum in Omaha, Nebraska, population 500k, is managed by a mixture of microwave design and troubleshooting, back stabbing, jamming with amateur gear, intrusions into ISP's networks, 'uncoordinated' adjustments of competitor's antennas and radios in shared facilities, lawsuits, character assassination, 'testing' of heavily amplified frequency hopping products, and occasional play on the part of aircrews on RC-135 Rivet Joints flying out of Offutt AFB.

      Never in a million billion zillion years would the licensed band network operators here tolerate that sort of conduct. Eben needs to stick to software licenses and leave radio physics alone ...

    --
    I am very easy to get along with, but I don't have time to waste being nice to people who are being stupid. -Theo
  3. Is he nuts? by Loconut1389 · · Score: 4, Interesting

    What would prevent the kiddie down the street from buying a 1000 watt transmitter, radiating himself and his neighbors, overmodulating his signal and washing out half the FM radio spectrum within a nearby radius?

    There is no way to mandate computer networked transmitters, or to enforce things from the transmitter side.

    The fcc handles figuring out land topology, power, assignments, and a myriad other factors involved in assigning a frequency and maximum power- for the entire country's radio space over several ghz of spectrum.

    What does open source really have to do with this anyway? Sure, open source could theoretically implement the system he talks about, but the post is more about the supposed irrelevance of the fcc and is using OSS as a buzzword to generate hype.