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."

Comments

Aliens

[Qwell]

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.

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-ali en.php

Re:Fantastic names

[agurkan]

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.

Re:FON's website

[raju1kabir]

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.

Are you sure you read the site? The reason to run a Linus hotspot is so that you will get reciprocal access to all the other Linus hostpots out there.

[And how did parent get modded informative? All it said was that the author didn't have any information to add.]