Slashdot Mirror
Clearance For New Linux Wireless Driver
An anonymous reader writes "The Software Freedom Law Center has given legal clearance to OpenHAL, a wireless component for Linux, based on their pro-bono review of the code. This announcement dispels allegations of infringement on Atheros' proprietary HAL software. 'We believe that this outcome will clear the way for eventual acceptance of a new wireless driver into the Linux kernel,' said John Linville, the Linux kernel maintainer for wireless networking."
NewslilySocial News. No lolcats allowed.
I was really sad to hear that Eben Moglen was leaving the FSF. I knew about SFLC, but always wondered if they would do much. On the contrary, it seems like SFLC has actually been active and done some great things in its short time as an organization. The conservancy is a great idea too!
When you have to clear your code with lawyers. The best part of it is that if it were a closed source blob, this step wouldn't really be necessary.
back in the 80s, kodak developed an instant film,and to make sure it was not infringing the polaroid patent suite, kodak paid for opinions from 3 seperate law firms
Polaroid sued, Kodak lost, and the opinions did not help them one little bit
or, would you bet your mortgage on the law center getting it right ?
I am the proud owner of a D-Link wireless card, and as much as I love this card, I hate having to use a binary blob to make it work. Ubuntu's the only distribution I've found that works well out of the box with this card because of the streamlined restricted modules.
Here's hoping this makes it into the kernel soon!
I'm afraid. I'm afraid, Dave. Dave, my mind is going. I can feel it. I can feel it. My mind is going. There is no question about it. I can feel it. I can feel it. I can feel it. I'm a... fraid. Good afternoon, gentlemen. I am a HAL 9000 computer. I became operational at the H.A.L. plant in Urbana, Illinois on the 12th of January 1992. My instructor was Mr. Langley, and he taught me to sing a song. If you'd like to hear it I can sing it for you.
Actually, it sucks arse.
I have three different Broadcom chipsets supposedly handled by the drivers. One of them works well. The other two barely at all, with lots of dropouts and other problems. This on several different distros too. I invariably end up using ndiswrapper for stability and reliability.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
My impression of Broadcom hardware is 100% based on my experience using their products on Linux, and imo Broadcom is the suck.
I've noticed that when an application or gadget doesn't work well on MS Windows, people blame the application or the gadget, not Windows. But those same people blame Linux for every application/gadgets shortcomings.
There are more Desktops running Linux everyday though and one day vendors will start to realize that when their hardware "doesn't work" on Linux *a lot* of people will see that as a reflection of their product, not the Linux Kernel.
For myself, I don't even address driver stability in conversation anymore, I just go straight to "vendor x makes crap hardware".
Samsung took back my unlocked bootloader because Google wants me to rent movies. They're both evil.
you know that's pretty insightful, IMO. I didn't really realize this was how I felt until you just said it. When I was a windows only guy, I blamed the hardware, or worse, just assumed it couldn't be done (despite knowing better). I never was at the point where a _blamed_ linux, just understood that it hadn't caught up with the hardware yet. Now that linux has caught up with all my hardware and almost all the hardware I've encountered out in the world, I more and more blame the hardware for failures on my linux machines. I've come to trust the code to work.
man, I feel like mold.
Fully functional hardware is readily available and cheap
Is there a regularly-updated list around, anywhere, of what wireless hardware is well supported under particular distributions, and whether it has drivers in the kernel, or from some additional source, or requires binary blobs?
The problem I've always had is that whenever I go to a store to buy a WL card, there are always 10 different ones on the shelves, none of which I've ever heard of, and I can never find any of the supposedly-compatible ones around.
It's not hard to find reports where people will say "oh, yeah, my FOO3549 works perfectly, right out of the box!" but then if you try to go to a store and buy a FOO3549, you'll find out it was discontinued six months ago and replaced with the FOO3649, which uses some totally different, highly proprietary chipset, that there's no support for. (Heck, sometimes they don't even bother to change the model numbers.)
This isn't entirely the fault of Linux or any of the OSS driver developers, but it is a major fucking pain in the ass to buy Linux-compatible wireless cards, and I have a stack of incompatible ones sitting around as a testament to this. I've basically given up -- finally I realized that wireless internet was more frustration than it's worth, and I bought a 500' spool of CAT-5e plenum cable and started drilling holes throughout my house. At least running cables feels like a solvable problem. (Hint: the easiest way to run Ethernet between floors is to route it through the heating ducts...particularly if your walls are all insulated.)
But as far as I know, there's no good centralized repository of information concerning the compatibility of different models, or even of which models have which chipsets. It's all scattered around the internet in a dozen different wikis and forums.
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
From what I understand (and from what the Madwifi wiki tells me), the current HAL is closed source because the Atheros chipset has the technical capabilities to broadcast out of the legal range of spectrum allowed by the FCC and similar bodies. Wouldn't distributing OpenHal be illegal? The SFLC seems to answer a different question in TFA - what about the legal ramifications of distributing a free software HAL in the first place?
If you care about having high-quality open-source drivers for your wireless card, it's a no-brainer... go with Ralink or Realtek-based cards, since those companies have gone out of their way to provide specs and help write drivers. Or even Atheros or Intel, which have also worked hard to satisfy the open-source communities, though both have kept a proprietary core out of regulatory compliance worries (that's what OpenHAL is about, replacing the proprietary core of the Atheros drivers).
But *definitely* don't choose Broadcom if you want open-source drivers. They haven't lifted a finger or provided a single spec to help the open-source community. The imperfect state of bcm43xx drivers is thanks to the arduous and time-consuming task of reverse engineering. That it works well for a lot of people is a testament to the incredible talent and hard work of the bcm43xx developers, and I for one am very thankful to them.
By the way, this site is a really useful database of wireless support under Linux. You can look up a specific brand and model of wireless card and find out what chipset it uses and how well it's supported.
My bicyles
silly mods...
You are wrong.
1) fwcutter just cuts out the firmware. Most wlan drivers today need firmware. It is completely different from using ndiswrapper. firmware doesn`t run on your cpu, a windows otoh does. The reason they made fwcutter is that the license on the firmware probably doesn't allow redistribution (or, that there is really no license info available). So in contrast to what you are posing, the drivers are native.
2) Latest versions start to become much better on the few chipsets I own. Some are PPC, so forget about ndiswrapper.