On Tue, Sep 20, 2011 at 03:21:14PM +0200, Johannes Berg wrote: > Now, don't get me wrong -- I don't think the duplication is a good > thing. A lot of the PHY code could be shared. However, I think it will > probably not be possible for much longer to share the higher level MAC > code that programs the SHM etc. It would be nice to see some of this. I don't think anything is stopping either Broadcom _or_ the b43 team from posting such patches. > So I don't claim to know what the solution is, but I think simply > rejecting the Broadcom effort like most people seem to imply is a good > solution at all. It will leave all of us in a bad spot by creating a > driver that has to support too many different devices. I'm inclined to agree. Despite recent heroic efforts, b43 remains behind in it's support for current features of Broadcom hardware. As developers find other gainful interests, that gap is sure to widen -- it certainly was quite wide just a few months ago. As Johannes implies, it seems likely that newer Broadcom hardware will need to be supported by a different/new driver anyway. Is there some reason why that new driver needs to have a b43 pedigree? If we want/expect Broadcom to support that new driver, is it so unreasonable to allow them to start from the codebase they prefer? I don't think it is. Broadcom has come a long way in the wireless arena. I think we would be better served by bringing them into the fold than by continuing to demand what they don't feel able to provide. John -- John W. Linville Someday the world will need a hero, and you linville@xxxxxxxxxxxxx might be all we have. Be ready. -- 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
