FSF Certifies Atheros-Based ThinkPenguin 802.11 N USB Adapter

gnujoshua writes "You may recall that last Fall, the LulzBot AO-100 3D printer was awarded the use of the Free Software Foundation's Respects Your Freedom certification mark. Today, the FSF announced certification of the ThinkPenguin TPE-N150USB, Wireless N USB Adapter, which uses the Atheros ARAR9271 chip. The FSF's RYF certification requirements are focused on the software (not the hardware designs) of a product, which in this case was primarily the device firmware and ath9k-htc module in the Linux-libre kernel. (Disclosure: I work for the FSF.) There's also a cool story that is within this story... which is that the firmware for the Atheros AR9271 chipset was released as a result of a small device seller (ThinkPenguin) striking a deal with a large electronic device manufacturer (Qualcomm Atheros) to build a WLAN USB adapter that shipped with 100% free software firmware. This deal was possible largely because two motivated Qualcomm Atheros employees, Adrian Chadd and Luis Rodriguez, made the internal-push to get the firmware released as free software."

Comments

Re:Yeah, but $54 for a USB Wifi?

[Arker]

Freedom isnt about cheap and it never was.

A dongle that 'just works' today with a particular binary wont necessarily work tomorrow on a different machine or after a simple recompile with different options, let alone after a major software upgrade.

At the moment this appears to be the only properly supported wireless dongle on the market. It should be no surprise it's a little more expensive than the junk.