Slashdot Mirror
Google and Skype in Startup to Link Hotspots
An anonymous reader writes "Google and Skype are investing in a new startup (FON, the Spanish startup) that plans to help hotspot owners charge for Wi-Fi access points. The plan outlines two different classes of customer; "Linus" members, named after Linus Torvalds, will share their hotspot with other Linus members for free and "Bill" members, named after Microsoft's Bill Gates, will charge for access to their hotspot. FON will get some of that revenue, and share it with ISPs."
The guys from FON were recently at ETel in San Francisco. There are also Aliens, which are the people who are willing to pay for access.
i en.php
Linuses: People who will let others (Aliens and other Linuses) use their links, if they in turn can use other Linuses links.
Bills: People who will let others (Aliens) use their links, for a percentage of the profits.
Aliens: People who are willing to pay Bills to use their links (and since they pay, they can use Linuses links), but aren't willing to share their own connections.
For more information about the different types of users, see http://en.fon.com/info/linus-meet-bill-meet-an-al
As of 10/06/03, I hate COBOL developers.
I personally think Richard would be more appropiate than Linus. The freeness of Linux in particular and GNU/Linux in general comes from RMS's ideals, or more precisely his expression of some ideals common to many people. Linus has done a great job, but the antithesis of Windows is GNU.
ato
The article didn't really tell too much about what's distinctive about FON, so I went to their website here:
http://en.fon.com/
And of course, their blog: http://blog.fon.com/en/
It still isn't too clear though on what the advantage is of having a "Linus" hotspot instead of just having it be open-access. My guess is that the main benefit is that hotspot users are authenticated with a "global" ID, which would help deter abuse, spamming, etc.
That is the Linus side. As to the code, it is freely available via their site, so copying is not that difficult. In fact, it is the linux set-up for the linksys w54g model
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
It seems very nice, but it is not going to work.
1) The man itself. No one in Spain would buy a used car from Martin Varsavsky.
2) In Spain it's illegal to resell or even share your Internet connection, the contract with the ISP almost always says so. It can be debatable, but it is what you have signed.
In fact, FON has been around for some time with very limited success. It gets mentioned in the news just because Varsavsky is a known celebrity in Spanish ISP world.
So, you pay an ISP for the connection, then pay them again when you allow others to share it?
That's a sweeet deal. For the ISPs.
Environmentalism is the new Victorianism. Everyone ties on a green corset and pretends we're virtuous.
Not very reassuring to me.
No? I think this is the bit that is reassuring on that count:
FON discourages any inappropriate use of your connection by making sure that each user of the FON Community has registered and is identifiable."
So when the RIAA comes delivers their lawsuit, you should be able to go to FON (or even your own logs perhaps?) and find the name and address of the person who actually did the downloading. Begin able to say "I didn't do it, X did, and here's the proof" puts you in a pretty strong position, whereas "I didn't do it and I don't know who used my open WiFi to do it" is much weaker.
Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.