ESP32 Forum

hi,

i note that the entire ESP32's source code is fully libre. i *believe* also that there is no proprietary firmware blobs to be uploaded for the 802.11n WIFI to function (it would be good to have this confirmed).

there are quite a number of small SoCs out there which can operate on 802.11n without requiring proprietary firmware blobs, meaning that OS upgrades are a lot simpler, thus in turn resulting in far less customer complaints and/or end-user support requests, thus in turn meaning that long-term anything based on ESP32 or other SoC not needing proprietary WIFI blobs is much more profitable...

... but there are literally ZERO such SoCs which can do 802.11ac.

so.

Espressiv.

this is a business opportunity for you - to create a variant of ESP32 which can handle 802.11ac *WITHOUT* requiring proprietary firmware to be uploaded to it. if that SoC can then be utilised to create USB-based WIFI dongles, and other products, at the very least the company that sells 1% of the world's USB WIFI dongles will be very interested to create (and sell) a product based around such an SoC.

WiFi stack is not open source, so that''s at least one set of proprietary blobs.
Although we do have plans to open up the higher layers of the stack, lower MAC and PHY layers will remain closed for the time being.

ok - the business case for a libre (open) wifi stack has been clearly made a number of times: forums across the world are littered with complaints, "I Upgraded And It Broke It's All {insert someone to blame}'s Fault" whether it be linux, macosx, windows, god, the high heavens. users, developers and businesses are getting truly sick and tired of having to deal with this constant fight, with the constant search for replacement hardware just because they upgraded an OS... and then having to track down drivers and check licensing on the firmware - it's just insane.

not to mention the fact that locked-down firmware cannot be adapted to do things that *YOU* did not design them for. the typical scenario is the fact that peer-to-peer mesh networking was added *BY THE SOFTWARE LIBRE COMMUNITY* to the AR9271 libre firmware... not by qualcomm.

so as it stands, your product is, unfortunately, of no interest to the extremely loyal customers of my client (his customers will typically order in volumes of 10k and above), as it is basically yet another example of a product that will cause their clients no end of problems when it comes to OS upgrades or just trying to track down drivers in the first place.

that will *COMPLETELY* change... the moment that you release the full stack's source code under a software libre compatible license.

however, with this current version of the ESP32, even if you released the full source code, you would be competing directly against the AR9271 chipset... for now. Qualcomm/Atheros do not understand why the AR9271 remains popular and are quite likely to EOL it.

the much, *much* more interesting market is the 802.11ac market. that simply does not have a libre product available *at all*. it is therefore an open market... for now, because my client is investigating several parallel leads. first one to provide libre firmware will get the orders, plain and simple.

... up to you, guys