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Comment by mjevans | Hacker News Reader

As well as likely distributing firmware which SHOULD just be shipped with the bloody hardware in a small sliver of ROM, or patches to roms which have bugs because of lack of testing, etc.

Also many of the WiFi drivers have such crazy firmware because they're actually (at least partly) software defined radios and thus each country needs a slightly different flavor and that's related to regulations and testing.

Everything would be much easier if we could just have some part of the UN that every country agrees to follow manage a universal spectrum allocation and anyone that disagrees should just expect all of the electronics to break.

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> Everything would be much easier if we could just have some part of the UN that every country agrees to follow manage a universal spectrum allocation and anyone that disagrees should just expect all of the electronics to break.

Not sure it would be. As I understood that's more or less how it works today bar the UN bit. Key industry players chatter and come up with standards that all are reasonably happy with. But then throw in a few countries that want to do things differently just for the sake of it, prior spectrum allocation, and protectionist moves, and you end up where we are today...

https://xkcd.com/927/

Err, yeah, good luck with that.

Sad thing is that is is USA that is the problem child in all this. Being largely isolated from Eurasia, and having just a few big neighbors that are easy to convince to play along, they can basically define the spectrum within their broadcast reach as they see fit.

It is basically the same reasoning behind it as why metric is still not the default over there.

> Sad thing is that is is USA that is the problem child in all this. Being largely isolated from Eurasia, and having just a few big neighbors that are easy to convince to play along, they can basically define the spectrum within their broadcast reach as they see fit.

Well, and that works in our situation.

> It is basically the same reasoning behind it as why metric is still not the default over there.

There's also the simple fact that the 'metric' system is just different, not superior in general (i.e., it's better at some things and worse in others). Why impose a bunch of costs for no net benefit? If every other country jumped off a bridge, ought we?

What is the metric system worse at?

Having sufficient factors. The only change I would do (if I could) is to make the metric system use Base-12. That would be something truly better because one-third would now be 4; quarter would be 3; half would 6; three-fourths would be 9. Compare that to 3.3333; 2.5; 5 and 7.5 of something.

Just like who hexadecimal is very natural in 8/16/32/64 bit computing, the "real life" usage of measures would be much easier if it was in Base-12.

Dividing by 2 or 3. Having useful amounts of precision.

By 2? Because dividing 10 or 100 by 2 is harder than 12 by 2?

Three, I'll give you.

Useful amounts of precision is a nothing, if you ask me. We start teaching decimals in third grade, and the only real issue with decimals is weather, for which the difference is saying "80F vs 81F", or "26.7 versus 27.2", whose utility is ... limited.

For distance, the metric system has finer grained units for precision (come on, break down inches: 1/16, 1/8, 3/16, 1/4, 5/16, 3/8, 1/2, etc... are you going to argue that is better than 25.7cm or 257mm?).

I'm not really buying it, as someone who has lived in both worlds.

Yes, two. 1 foot/16 is 3/4 of an inch. 1 m/16 is 6.25 cm.

You can say 1.5 cups instead of 375 mL.

Metric really is at least somewhat better for most things. But the areas where metric is genuinely superior (a lot of engineering, etc.), metric mostly is used already. For the standard stuff that consumers are exposed to, the advantages of metric aren't that great and no one's all that anxious to switch.

No, things would be better if someone (not me, alas, with a nod to the Linus rant) would design, build and market a wifi chip with FOSS firmware.

Software is great exactly because it allows for infinite flexibility, so you don't need to involve the UN when allocating wifi spectrum.

Other way round: you need to comply with the (national) spectrum allocation. I'm not sure it would be even possible to build a FOSS wifi device without infringing any patents. And, as with other OSHW, how much more are people prepared to pay for that open-ness? I suspect very little.

That would probably be illegal for unlicenced use. WiFi firmware the way it's written now is considered hardware (at least in the US) just like the parent of your comment said.

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