[Cu-wireless] Questions

[Stephane Alnet]

[Kept on the list.]

[Sascha wrote:]
> we can supply you with complete wireless nodes
> -- they cost $500 + shipping right now (we are hoping that this price 
> will
> drop over the next year).
> The nodes include an indoor-outdoor enclosure, 8dbi omni-directional
> antenna, 802.11 wireless card, power-over-ethernet injector, 64MB of 
> flash
> memory -- basically, everything that's needed to form a fully 
> operational
> wireless mesh.  We can install our software on these nodes or ship them
> without the software.

I was a bit surprised by that series of statement, but I didn't know 
exactly how to formulate it. Here's an attempt:

- I'm not sure CUWin is able to sell widgets or even more manufacture 
widgets, from a status perspective. (Another way to look at it: whom do 
I make my check payable to? Who collects sales taxes and repay them to 
the state?)

- With manufacturing and selling comes responsabilities. One that comes 
to mind is warranty; a manufacturer is required to provided one year 
warranty on its equipment. If we build at the cost of parts, how do we 
cover for warranty issues? [eg: "water-in-my-waterproof-node, please 
replace or refund".]

- What about consequential liability? Third party buys a node from the 
CUWin manufacturer at the CUWin retail shop (online or offline), 
installs it on top of a neighbor's house, didn't know he had to put a 
ground line, thunderstorm trashes the node and burns the house (or just 
the neighbor's computer). Who pays the house (neighbor's computer)?

- What about FCC stuff on building equipment off parts & certifying the 
whole? (I remember we had some discussions about this very topic a 
couple years ago.)


Just some questions, IANAL. If we have the answers, then please let's 
help other projects. But if we don't then maybe we need to have 
somebody "outside CUWin" take over that part. ("Outside CUWin" doesn't 
mean unrelated to the project..)
S.

PS: I'm not talking about telephone & Internet support, handling RMAs, 
QA & testing, business model, marketing or whatever you need to keep a 
start-up business in line. Just the basic stuff of manufacturing and 
selling data-processing and radio frequency equipment.


--
Mayotte, Océan Indien - http://stephane.alnet.free.fr/