Return-path: Received: from mail-px0-f180.google.com ([209.85.216.180]:64540 "EHLO mail-px0-f180.google.com" rhost-flags-OK-OK-OK-OK) by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S1752611AbZKGTml convert rfc822-to-8bit (ORCPT ); Sat, 7 Nov 2009 14:42:41 -0500 Received: by pxi10 with SMTP id 10so1466730pxi.33 for ; Sat, 07 Nov 2009 11:42:47 -0800 (PST) MIME-Version: 1.0 In-Reply-To: References: <43e72e890911060821r2703c186lbb75c40b449b2c55@mail.gmail.com> From: "Luis R. Rodriguez" Date: Sat, 7 Nov 2009 11:42:27 -0800 Message-ID: <43e72e890911071142o6b0d0e9ap299e7f9b2bc21f15@mail.gmail.com> Subject: Re: Getting random regulatory domains on boot-up with ath9k To: Jeffrey Baker Cc: linux-wireless@vger.kernel.org Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8 Sender: linux-wireless-owner@vger.kernel.org List-ID: On Sat, Nov 7, 2009 at 11:02 AM, Jeffrey Baker wrote: > On Fri, Nov 6, 2009 at 8:21 AM, Luis R. Rodriguez wrote: >> On Fri, Nov 6, 2009 at 12:04 AM, Jeffrey Baker wrote: >> So one way or another user intervention is required to alter current >> regulatory solutions. For Linux though the best solution *as an end >> user* to enable AP mode is not to alter wireless-regdb but instead to >> report your issue. In your case you have a non-trivial regression >> which does indeed need to be addressed. > > Thanks, your email(s) explained a great number of issues.  I don't > have the expertise to contribute here, so I leave it in your capable > hands.  I would say, however, that from the _user's_ perspective, the > best thing is if a wifi card bought in the USA from a USA retailer > automagically conformed to USA regulations, even if that's an issue to > be taken up with the card manufacturer and not with the driver > authors. Agreed, however how devices get programmed is a little complex than just a country code. So one option is to use a direct country code and that's it, another option is to use a world regulatory domain when you want to target a few countries and want to have passive scanning enabled -- typically business laptop SKUs. Then you have the region codes as your card has which is targetted for a few set of countries on a region, for example a european region code. What we have learned from implementing a solution on Linux is this wasn't easy to manage but that we can make it simpler. At Atheros at least we might stop using the region codes and just stick to the world roaming options and direct country codes. The Linux implementation we have done has helped to re-evaluate current implementations and has helped us adapt to better more reasonable solutions. These things just take time to change. Luis