this sounds just like the state of ISDN a few years ago [LWN.net]

this sounds just like the state of ISDN a few years ago

Posted Jan 27, 2007 2:01 UTC (Sat) by dlang (✭ supporter ✭, #313)
In reply to: Dealing with the regulators by JoeBuck
Parent article: A report from the Linux wireless developers meeting

various countries wouldn't allow opensource ISDN drivers due to the restrictions by the telco's about the equipment that could be plugged into their network), and the community worked around that by writing a set of drivers and getting them approved. after a few false starts things seem to be settled nowdays.

someone should research the history of this and what it took to make things work to see if a similar path can be followed by wireless

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this sounds just like the state of ISDN a few years ago

Posted Feb 1, 2007 15:02 UTC (Thu) by dion (subscriber, #2764) [Link]

I guess the ISDN driver problem was solved by three things:

1) European telcos were privatized, so they lost their exclusive access to the copper and much of the BS simply went away, we have the EU to thank for this.

2) Prices on equipment dropped and the pressure to use winmodem like devices lessened, so a simple serial driver could be used in stead.

3) People stopped using ISDN because 64kbit/s just isn't so sexy any more.

this sounds just like the state of ISDN a few years ago

Posted Feb 2, 2007 12:56 UTC (Fri) by laf0rge (subscriber, #6469) [Link]

I completely agree, and I have addressed this fact (in netdev circles) before.

With isdn4linux, there was one vendor (ELSA?) who funded the certification/approval process for one specific i4l version. It took quite a bit of time, since they actually tested all the protocol state transitions, etc.

After this was done, this actually was a business advantage to the vendor. The stack was only certified for their card[s]. So anyone deploying i4l in a commercial environment wanted to use their cards. Obviously with passive ISDN cards, all other cards would also behave exactly identical - but they were missing regulatory approval.

Obviously, using a later i4l version and/or applying bugfixes to the source code also voids the approval, and in order to use it legally, you would need to re-certify.