Fernando Cassia wrote:
On Tue, Jun 23, 2009 at 11:16 AM, Christopher A.
Williams<chriswfedora@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
I have a couple of laptops I've been working on that I have not been
able to get WiFi to come up on at all.
Both of them have the Broadcom BC43XX series adapters. One of them is a
Gateway MX6030 laptop equipped with a Broadcom BCM4318 adapter and the
other is a Dell Inspiron e1705 with a BCM4311 adapter.
Broadcom has a history of being outright hostile toward the FOSS
software developers... Check this out...
http://blogs.computerworld.com/new_linux_broadcom_wi_fi_drivers_arrive
Ubuntu 8 is about to be released... wait, that means the article is years old.
To provide the full story, the adapters in question are capable of being
operated outside the FCC allowed parameters, and Broadcom has expressed some
doubts about the wisdom of allowing fully open source. You may think their
lawyers are jerks, but they are paid to do CYA, and by keeping the firmware
closed they protect themselves.
You can agree or disagree with their legal position, but given the support they
do provide, I think "outright hostile toward the FOSS software developers" is
pretty strong. I call it overly cautious, and having nothing in my religion
which forbids using kmod-wl I'm happy.
--
Bill Davidsen <davidsen@xxxxxxx>
"We have more to fear from the bungling of the incompetent than from
the machinations of the wicked." - from Slashdot
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