[PATCH] Revert "ath: add support for special 0x0 regulatory domain"

[Julian Phillips]

​Hello,

Has a decision been reached as to whether or not this commit will be reverted? It appears to still exist in kernel 5.10. 

I too have a Compex WLE900VX QCA986x/988x 802.11ac card and am affected. I purchased the card from Switzerland and am running it in Canada.

I've been using the v5.4 LTS kernel as a temporary workaround, but given 5.10 will be the next LTS it would be helpful to have a definitive answer one way or another on this issue so those of us who are affected can plan accordingly.

The last update I'm aware of is Alvin's argument to revert the patch: https://lists.infradead.org/pipermail/ath10k/2020-October/012049.html .

Kind regards,
Julian
​

From: ath10k <ath10k-bounces at lists.infradead.org> on behalf of Félix Sipma <felix+kernel at gueux.org>
Sent: October 30, 2020 8:51 AM
To: Jouni Malinen <jkmalinen at gmail.com>
Cc: ath10k at lists.infradead.org <ath10k at lists.infradead.org>
Subject: Re: [PATCH] Revert "ath: add support for special 0x0 regulatory domain" 
 
On 2020-10-30 09:20+0200, Jouni Malinen wrote:
>On Thu, Oct 29, 2020 at 4:06 PM Félix Sipma <felix+kernel at gueux.org> wrote:
>> I made a detailed report, with dmesg outputs of different
>> kernel/firmware-atheros and wireless-regdb combinations at
>> https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=970679
>
>So the issue is in not being able to operate an AP on the 5 GHz band?

Yes, sorry for not being clear about this.

>That sounds like the expected behavior for any device that has not
>been calibrated and provisioned for a specific country where
>regulatory rules allow operation on the 5 GHz band. I understand that
>this may look like a regression since the commit removed
>functionality, but it feels like a bug fix to me since that
>functionality should not have been enabled by default in the first
>place. The goal here is to avoid inappropriate operation on the band
>without explicit configuration to enable such operation. In AP
>devices, the device should have been provisioned for a specific
>country to be able to enforce the correct frequency range
>restrictions. The safe default for a device that does not have such
>explicit configuration within the WLAN component itself is to use the
>world roaming mode which prevents initialization of radiation (i.e.,
>does not allow AP mode to be started but allows station mode operation
>to connect to an already started AP) on the 5 GHz band.

So, if I understand well, the new behaviour (non working AP with ac) is 
expected, given that the device was not provisioned with the settings 
specifics to my zone? And to prevent people from operating an AP with 
the wrong settings, we force them to use hardware that is specific to 
their zone? If that's the intention, I'm not sure it is very effective: 
I can still buy a German wifi card and use it in France. It will 
probably suits most of the hardware vendors, though: people moving to 
another country are forced to buy new stuff and they can't buy cheaper 
stuff abroad, but, seen from another angle, it sounds like planned 
obsolescence.

The vendor of my (new) hardware is from Switzerland, and is selling to 
(at least) everywhere in Europe, and they sell the same hardware (that 
used to work) for everybody. So, now, they are supposed to sell 
specific hardware for each country? I think the card was not 
provisioned with a specific country (I'm in France, and I tried FR, CH, 
US,  ...), so I guess I have to throw it to the bin anyway (and they 
should do the same with all their stocks).

I hope I have misunderstood your message, else I have to admit I'm a 
little disappointed... Thanks for your explanation, though!

If that's really the intention, is there a workaround for irresponsible 
people like me, who just wan't to avoid buying new stuff?

Regards,

-- 
Félix