FreeBSD 6.0 to Target Wireless Devices

BSDForums writes "FreeBSD is hoping to move beyond the server and desktop market by providing expanded wireless support. FreeBSD developer Scott Long said that 'one of the primary reasons for improving wireless support is to give companies the tools to put FreeBSD into their wireless devices. The guy at FreeBSD who is adding wireless support is under contract from wireless companies to do the work.'"

Comments

Re:The reluctant adoption of Linux

[iamdrscience]

That's bull really. I can do the GPL zealotry bit like the best of them, but most of the cool hacks with wireless devices do not come as a result of kernel changes released by companies. Most of them come from the fact that these devices simply are small, cheap systems that are able to run linux.

OpenBSD

[cyberkahn]

This is not intended to be a flame as I really like FreeBSD as well. FreeBSD could learn a lot from the OpenBSD project in this area. I have been absolutely amazed at OpenBSD's out of the box wireless detection configuration. I installed OpenBSD on my laptop over my WPC11 wireless NIC without effort. I also had the same results with the WMP54G.

Re:Proprietary source is not the reason..

[LuSiDe]

The real reason why companies are a little afraid of the GPL is that there is always the potential for lawsuits.

Granted, it's a remote possibility, but a possibility all the same

And this is where FreeBSD can give people a choice.

First of all: why are those 'remote', legal possibilities not existant in FreeBSD? SCO? There's almost nobody who believes they have a case anymore and they also said some things about *BSD. So... what else? We're discussing drivers. If i write a driver for the Linux kernel and i release that sourcecode under the GPL then why would that make me somehow more vulnerable to a lawsuit than a BSD licensed driver for FreeBSD? Or if i write a proprietary driver? Nah, the significant advantage is the option to write a proprietary driver for FreeBSD. However that is also possible for the Linux kernel and the Linux kernel is more popular (esp for embedded purposes i think -- i have no statistics or ath just observation from linuxembedded.com whereas not seen much FreeBSD-based embedded hardware).

most companies would rather not be bothered with the GPL if given a choice.

Debatable. Given there are many corporations which deal with the GPL. The hazard is also debatable.

And what happens when the slashdot community burns a company for forgetting to post something, or posting modifications that are difficult to utilize. Remember Apple and Konqueror?

I guess Apple prefers the BSD license though, yeah. One example doesn't make it a yes/no though and then again Apple doesn't contribute much open source software either. Its not in their interest (therefore i argue: Why would i care that Apple gets free goodies? They are being egoistic. Why should i be altruistic to them then?). But, different corporations have different interests. RedHat, for example, has a different view and i know various corporations which support the Linux kernel via a GPLed driver. ATI and NVidia do support a driver for Linux (and NVidia FreeBSD as well) but its not under the GPL. Its not in their interest to do so. But did they ever state they dislike the GPL or dealing with it? Did NVidia state they prefer to deal with the BSD license? Or FreeBSD? Over GPL or the Linux kernel?

And assuming it's just as good as Linux, it's a better choice due to legal issues.

The former is debatable. Regarding the latter: What legal issues does Linux have which FreeBSD doesn't have? The only one currectly known -excluding SCO- is the BSD license itself which means in this case that the corporation would not have to give their sourcecode changes back even when they'd distribute the binary. Wether thats a good or a bad thing -- debatable.

IOW, to end my post: I agree w/you on choice, i agree that there are circumstances where you're right if not only for the fact that there are so many corporative possiblities in this world. But to say the BSD license is always in advantage on a legal point of view while ignoring its protective powers, is too non-pragmatic to me.