On Tue, Nov 21, 2017 at 12:40:32PM +0100, Marcus MERIGHI wrote: > I found: > > Panasonic TYWL20U Wireless LAN Adaptor EUR 137,-- > But cannot afford to just hit "buy" atm.
Beware, unfortunately there are some seriously overpriced offers for this type of hardware. I think it's a shame. The hardware by itself isn't nearly worth that much. The expensive offers I've been shown are either for products tied to a specific brand of equipment (e.g. Panasonic, Sony), or they come from shops selling originally cheap but now suddenly very expensive rebranded devices "certified" compatible with some "linux-libre" OS. This is taking advantage of people who believe in software freedom but lack the expertise or community support to choose their hardware accordingly. I have already turned down an offer from someone who wanted to buy a device from such a linux-libre shop for me. In my opinion, shops with such enormously overblown prices are in opposition to ethical values implied by free software, such as fairness and co-operation. Should it turn out that these devices aren't cheaply and widely available because they're being scooped up by such shops, this would call efforts for supporting the open firmware into question. These devices are supposed to be a commodity, not expensive toys. Reasonable prices would be in the 10-30 Euro range.
