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Comment by furtiman | Hacker News Reader

While the LoRa radio modulation (phy) is licensed by Semtech, the MAC layer protocol - LoRaWAN is completely open and is free to be used, implemented and tinkered with. https://lora-alliance.org/

Many implementations are also open-source, like The Things Stack from The Things Network. It can also be run locally.

https://github.com/TheThingsNetwork/lorawan-stack

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I'd want the entire stack to be open and free. When Layer 1 is closed and proprietary, I don't really care if I can build open source on top of it, in Layer 2.

Is this not the case with existing computers and phones? We build and run OSS on top of them.

It is, and there is a lot of effort being expended to remediate that - there's a reason why some people use pre-2011 thinkpads. I think it would be pragmatic in new endeavors to do things right and correctly from the start, so that remediation isn't needed later.

There have been many commercial and crowdsourced attempts to do so, with variable levels of success.

Do you buy or participate in those?

I care, but not enough to leave my iPhone (more specifically: the functionality, usability, and reliability it provides) behind, at this point.

There's a link upstream of fully OSS LoRa alternatives. Your question to me makes no sense: it's like asking if the developers of those alternative technologies use 5G-enabled phones, even though those also use proprietary technologies.

Maybe I should clarify: existing tech is what it is. We probably have to use it. But if we're building new tech, why would we waste time doing it incorrectly, when we have the chance to do it right?

> I care, but not enough to leave my iPhone

Then you really don't care.

Sorry, I know that sounds flippant, but hardware manufacturers have become exceptionally good at calibrating this "just enough tyranny to wear down the majority" thing. It's exactly this "not enough to leave my iPhone" attitude that they've figured out how to exploit.

Haven't we learned the lesson yet? Let's not fall into the proprietary trap again.

Was Chirp Spread Spectrum developed prior to LoRa itself out of interest? I had a little look at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chirp_spread_spectrum but couldn't really tell.

I was under the impression that other modulation schemes such as FSK etc. can also perform similarly to CSS in terms of data rate etc. and distance?

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