[vageli]

> This is already the case for mobile networks. Open source basebands are illegal. The best you can do is sequester your proprietary government-aproved co-processor as far as possible from your main processor, but most computers with such network adapters built-in aren't designed this way - they're designed to promiscuously share memory.

I don't think open source basebands are illegal per se. I thought the legal encumbrance was due to the NDAs under which documents related to wireless chipsets are released. Can you explain a bit more?

[dTal]

It's not that there's a law (that I'm aware of) forbidding baseband software where the source is public - it's that operating a device with uncertified firmware is illegal. That means that devices with user-modifiable baseband firmware are also illegal (or at any rate, no manufacturer will take responsibility). So open community development of baseband firmware, in the usual model, is impossible - you can't legally test it (at least not without a questionably-legal SDR, a femtocell, and a faraday cage) and you can't certify it.

So while it might, technically, be true to say that open source basebands aren't illegal per se, the fact remains that they are functionally impossible because of the law.