[kazinator]

The context is more or less obvious from "FCC". We know from those three letters that it's not about, say, banning Ubuntu from your PC.

[lexicalscope]

But the FCC regulates a great deal of equipment, and this is only targeting a very specific subset of that equipment - not all of it. I was initially pretty concerned as I'm a Ham radio operator, but this really does not concern me overly much now that it's clear it's:

A) SDR/Modular only B) Consumer only

[JoshTriplett]

Quite a bit of "consumer" equipment is halfway to an SDR already, and a ruling like this would mean you could never write or release FOSS firmware for a wireless card. (Note that wireless cards with FOSS firmware exist today.)

[lexicalscope]

Yeah - it sucks and this FCC rules is concerning, but not as concerning as I initially thought it was.

Don't get me wrong - I think this is a stupid rule, but I just don't think it's as big a deal as the article, and title in particular, make it out to be.

[throwaway2048]

and you can be certain that companies that make wireless routers and cellphones will take the easy route out and fully lock things down.