On Mon, Apr 07, 2008 at 11:42:52PM -0700, Greg KH wrote: > On Tue, Apr 08, 2008 at 11:46:48AM +0530, JoJo jojo wrote: > > e) wireless is a mess because of FCC regulations, they want > > manufacturers to limit the operating capabilities of the > > device(frequencies), manufacturers figure that its cheaper to do this > > in s/w rather than h/w, by making a closed source firmware. I don't > > see how we can improve this situation unless you can help EU legislate > > it away (assuming US is a lost cause) > > The whole FCC thing is, in my personal opinion, a big excuse that some > companies are using to not release the code for their hardware. If you > notice, other companies do not believe this and have released code. I think it is actually some of both. Regulators (particularly the FCC) have failed to eliminate the spectre of threat that might come from opening specs and/or source code from vendors. Further, they continue to countenance the notion that closed-source software is somehow equivalent to locking-down a hardware device. This provides enough "cover" for vendors to "run home" to an unfriendly stance against open source if they have any desire to do so for whatever other reasons may exist (embarassment about sloppy specs, perceived competitive advantage, etc). > Either way, the very capable, and active developers of the > linux-wireless projects are working to resolve all of the wireless > driver issues. If you have questions or concerns about these types of > devices, please contact them. On behalf of my developers (who do all the work), I appreciate your vote of confidence! While I'm here, let me invite any budding reverse engineers to join us on linux-wireless at vger.kernel.org. As Greg mentioned the reverse-engineered ath5k and b43 (and b43legacy) drivers continue to develop, but both projects could use more help. In particular the b43 folks need help reverse engineering the 802.11n devices. Also, there is a project underway to reverse-engineer support for Airgo devices. I regret that I haven't spent much time with that project, but I think it is well underway. Beyond that there are projects underway for Marvell PCI hardware, both the older 83xx and the newer 86xx stuff. The 83xx support (using the mrv8k driver) is farther along, while the 86xx stuff has made little progress. Marvell is at least somewhat friendly to having these supported, although their documentation is a bit lax. There are however (unmergeable) sample drivers available for each. Also lurking out there is support for the USB-based Prism2 devices. The linux-wlan project had support for these, but the kernel.org kernels do not. Hardware can be a bit hard to find... Well, enough food for thought for one message... :-) John -- John W. Linville linville at tuxdriver.com
