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Linux Sourcecode To Minitar Access Point
mcbridematt writes "Minitar sells a rebadged Edimax Linux based-802.11b Access Point in Australia (no FCC ID yet) for a relatively cheap price (under AUS $100 in places). These access points are based around the Realtek 8181 wireless-system-on-chip design, have 8MB flash rom, and run a 2.4 series Linux kernel. After requests from the community to get the kernel sources, which resulted in a incomplete sourcecode release, we finally have (allegedly) complete and GPL compliant Linux kernel sources for this fine Access Point. Special thanks to chuna, serialmonkey and screwball at Minitar for making this happen, especially after they ran into arguments with their OEM and Realtek over this." From the attached forum discussion, you can see there's disagreement about whether the source code release is as complete as it should be.
Before I kick myself in the arse over my usage of "full" in this story, there ain't any wireless code in there. It appears to be for the purpose of getting Linux to run on the damn thing. (Imagine a Beowulf cluster of these AUS $100 things blah blah..)
:(
The RTl8181 driver for Linux has been a seperate binary driver for some time
Maybe those of use stuck with a Realtek 8180 card? The model number is close enough to 8181 that there is some chance that the 8181 AP driver would work with the 8180 PCMCIA card, with only minor modifications.
Yes, I know that there already is a binary driver for the 8180, but it is very flaky, and rather picky about the kernels and distributions it agrees to work with... (as binary drivers usually are, alas!)
Say no to software patents.
...is kindof a cool thing one can do if able to update the flash memory on accesspoints.
Check out http://reseaucitoyen.be/index.php?OpenWrt (french) which is a project to run a olsr implementation (www.olsr.org) in a LinkSys-Wrt54G which also runs Linux.
Link to the product at NewEgg.
Knowledge is power. Knowledge shared is power multiplied.
Thats why Win2k/WinXp/etc like signed drivers. Being signed means they've been throught MS's tests... MS realized they were getting reamed for alot of lockups that weren't their fault.
So whatever linux is doing wrong, its still doing better then MS.
Religion is a gateway psychosis. -- Dave Foley
Thing is....
The binary drivers also aren't platform-independent. I'd imagine the 8180 driver only works on 32-bit x86. Now, for the majority of people, this isn't a problem, but what happens when you buy an Athlon64 notebook and want to run a 64-bit kernel, and the driver won't work....stuck in 32-bit land until Realtek graces you with a driver.
I'm in a similar situation, which is why I bring this up. I own a notebook with a broadcom wireless chip. Dell uses these in their notebooks. For PC users, they use the NDIS wrapper and use the windows driver. It has limited functionality, but it does work. I own an iBook, so the windows driver won't work at all for me. Cisco/Linksys use this chip in their wr54g router/ap, which uses arm, I think? They've relesed the source to the AP....everything *except* the source to the driver for the broadcom chip. Broadcom seems steadfast in its refusal to release the specs on the card, so until someone manages to reverse engineer it or something, there won't be any real free driver for it, and certainly not one for non-pc platforms. So much for running Linux or BSD on my iBook.
No, that is trademarks.
Your gripe doesn't show that the kernel interface sucks, but that binary drivers suck. The kernel API is left somewhat changeable on purpose, because there are major advantages to it and because the disadvantages of it accrue solely on binary-only drivers, which are in Linus' words 'unsupported' and not to be encouraged anyway.
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Friends don't let friends enable ecmascript.
Your parent is incorrect about point 3. But you're also incorrect. The GPL does not require that you give the source to the public, it requires that either you transmit the source with the object code or you make an offer to give the source to any third party.
But it's hard to take someone up on an offer you haven't received. And company Y is not distributing the object code noncommercially, so they have to either provide their customers with the source code, or provide their own offer. Customers of company Y would not know of the offer of the source from Company X.
Your parent is incorrect with his point 3, because the GPL compels Company X to distribute the source and object codes under the GPL. Thus, Company Y must agree to those terms, and it's bound to include the source code with the object code, or offer the code.
Need a Catering Connection
This loophole doesn't exist. If you look at the GPL, it states that a written offer for the source code must exist that offers the entire source to any third party to eligible to receive it, i.e. someone receiving a binary copy of the software.
A ROM is merely a storage place for a binary file. By distributing software on ROM, you aren't exploiting any hole at all in the GPL. The hole is not there.
If you were to buy a piece of hardware with GPL'd software on it from E-bay, you would have to be extended the right to the source from the one who originally modified it.
In your example, Company Y would be off the hook, but Company X would still have to provide the source to those who owned the devices.
by Mike Buddha -- Someday the mountain might get him, but the law never will.
The Minitar AP is hardly the first AP for such an issue to surface. My Linksys WRT54G wireless router is also Linux based, which has been great as it has given birth to some interesting firmware and OS variations.
The concern for drivers isn't as big as you would think. Why spend AU$60 or 70 bucks on a realtek wireless card when for AU$80 (in our recent Melbourne Wireless bulk buy) you can have a complete, standalone, managed network device. Around our community wireless group, these devices are very popular for their possibility of expanding their functionality to include routing and fault tolerence technologies at a fraction of the cost of a commercial solution which we neither want or can afford. This is also helpful as we can implement peer-to-peer IBSS mode which is better suited for point to point links. Additionally, it allows us to build a wireless node for $80 an interface (excluding antenna and cabling) simply by pkugging in an extra device into a switch or hub.
I believe the common issue with releasing wireless drivers for open sourced OS's is that the cards can be reprogrammed to use wireless channels which may violate their telecommunications (eg, austel, FCC) certification by operating in frequency ranges of which they are not permitted.
I think that due to the cost of APs. vs using a PC as an AP these days, especially in running costs, that the protection of infrastructure-mode AP capabilities is really pointless anyway.