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Reverse Engineered 802.11b+ Drivers

Posted by Hemos on from the if-you-build-it-they-will-use-it dept.

orv writes "When Andreas Mohr found that his new wireless networking card wasn't supported under Linux rather than returning the card and getting himself a supported one, he decided to set up a project to write his own drivers instead - http://acx100.sourceforge.net. Companies such as D-Link had initially promised to release linux drivers for these cards but later backed down from that promise and announced that Linux would not be supported and that customers should not hold on to the cards in the hope of getting them working, as shown on their current FAQ. Texas Instruments, the makers of the chipsets upon which these 802.11b+ cards are based refused to release code or specifications for the cards, no doubt for similar reasons that were recently discussed here. The fact that the current alpha release is certainly as good, and in some areas better, than the binary drivers that escaped from one of the card manufactureres speaks volumes for the quality and determination of the team to create their own drivers."

4 of 272 comments (clear)

  1. Good For Them by SkArcher · · Score: 5, Interesting

    It is good to see a direct verifiable example of Open Source development with a higher standard of Quality Assurance than the corporate developers.

    A psychological standard of quality on the part of the devs leads to a physical and coding standard of quality a cut above the rest.

    --

    An infinite number of monkeys will eventually come up with the complete works of /.
  2. Official support by danormsby · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I can see why a company will not want to provide multi-OS support officially, as if Linux changed they don't want the liability of having to support the changes. But, if someone in that company was already half written a driver, even if it is buggy as hell, surely they should give this away to the user community as a starting point rather than forcing people to reverse engineer their own solutions.

    --
    Omnis amans amens
  3. Interesting by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Did anyone notice that D-Link's FAQ now provides a link to the SF project at the bottom? Well, it's better than another asinine lawsuit!

    1. Re:Interesting by orv · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Yeah that FAQ has changed a few times. I think there's a history of its comments on seattle wireless somewhere, rummage, rummage, here.

      Initially they said a linux driver would be released december 2002.
      In december that date was changed to Q1 2003.
      At the end of december they then said there were no plans for a linux driver and customers should not 'hold onto cards in the hope of drivers' being written.

      Then they added a link to the leaked binary drivers

      Then they added a link to the oss drivers

      Wonder what they'll change it to next?