On 2/4/07, Michael Buesch <mb@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
I don't really see your point. We can't change hardware. We have to implement the software around existing hardware. And that's currently softmac _and_ fullmac devices. So we have to create hooks and so on in our software to support the fullmac devices.
What happened at Microsoft in the Ethernet case is that MS stopped supporting FullMAC and told the vendors to come up with SoftMAC type drivers. For some cards the vendors wrote the software drivers and for others MS did. Not all of the vendors agreed to this and most of those companies are no longer around. The point is that Linux could simply design out the FullMAC hardware that didn't also make a basic SoftMAC interface available. The primary wireless implementation for Linux would be a fully software based implementation that all hardware would be required to minimally work with. The main kernel wireless developers would then focus their attention on the software stack implementation instead of dealing with all of the various firmware messes and uncooperative vendors. This model is pretty close to happening with the Dscape stack. Once Dscape goes in, notice could be given that the other implementations will be removed in a year. Of course Linux doesn't have the same kind of power over the vendors like MS does. But it doesn't mean that this model wouldn't work for Linux. The concept of a single top to bottom software based reference implementation with hooks for hardware acceleration is a sound design. -- Jon Smirl jonsmirl@xxxxxxxxx - To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-wireless" in the body of a message to majordomo@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
