Broadcom Releases Source Code For Drivers

I'm Not There (1956) writes "Broadcom, the world's largest manufacturer of Wi-Fi transceivers, open sources its Linux device drivers. This is a big win for Linux users, as there are a lot of users that face Wi-Fi problems when they use Linux on their laptops. With these device drivers now open source, distributions can ship them out-of-the-box, and that means no Linux Wi-Fi problems for new devices and upcoming distributions at all."

Comments

The world just got a bit nicer. :)

[h4rm0ny]

Broadcom wirelss. Cause of a 100 page thread on the Ubuntu forums (and innumerable posts elsewhere) by people trying to get those bloody cards working under Linux.

So speaking as one of the many sufferers, how long before I can just slap Linux on an old Acer laptop and expect the wireless to just work?

Re:The world just got a bit nicer. :)

[miknix]

$ lspci
(...)
03:00.0 Network controller: Broadcom Corporation BCM4311 802.11b/g WLAN (rev 02)

$ lsmod | grep b43
b43 153329 0
rng_core 3158 1 b43
mac80211 128164 1 b43
ssb 33383 1 b43

My broadcom BCM5311 has been working just fine using the b43 drivers included in Linux; they are there for quite some time..
Good news for everyone though. This means new broadcom hardware support and improvement of current GPLd drivers.

Re:The world just got a bit nicer. :)

[FrankSchwab]

My company manufactures devices for PCs. We do NOT open source our drivers; I'll give you my two cents as to why:

1. Licensing. Our drivers include licensed code from at least two other companies - code that implements algorithms seen as proprietary and valuable by those companies. We don't have the right to publish that code, and couldn't conceivably convince them to do so.
2. Competitive advantage. We have several competitors in our market. The specs that Marketing puts on our datasheets might be optimistic in some scenarios. If we open-sourced our drivers, our competitors could easily demonstrate that to potential customers - if their drivers were closed, we would not have the equivalent opportunity to prove that their liars were worse than our liars.
3. Support. If we publish source, we will end up fielding all kinds of questions from all kinds of people about all kinds of aspects of our product. Even if we simply answer "Go away" to all those queries, there's a lot of time spent reading and replying (or simply ignoring) them. Considering that we sell our products to OEMs for a few dollars, there just isn't any margin for end user support.
4. Security. Say what you will about "security through obscurity", it still has a huge following in the corporate world. Publishing all your source code provides all kinds of opportunities for the scoundrels of the world to take advantage, from the PHB point of view.
5. Financial. There is no business case to be made to disclose this proprietary information. If I'm not going to make money from something, why should I spend the time/effort to open source it, and perhaps give away information that my competitor could use?

In Broadcom's case, there are probably others also - for example, publishing source for a Wireless card could allow operating the RF section beyond regulatory limits - transmitting/receiving out of band, transmitting with too much power, etc. This could jeopardize certification (such as FCC certification in the US) or subject the company to unwanted regulatory scrutiny.

Does this help?

Re:The world just got a bit nicer. :)

[Lord Ender]

There is no business case to be made to [release linux drivers]

Before I buy personal hardware, I check to see if it works well in Linux. Before my organization buys hardware, it requires that it work in linux, as the vast majority of our datacenter runs RedHat.

Do you sell to businesses or computing enthusiasts? There's your business case. If you're selling to soccer mom's, well, then you would have a point.

Re:The world just got a bit nicer. :)

[gknoy]

1. I should spend a month or two of engineering time to write specifications for a block that isn't part of my core competency?

Don't try to describe it all, just point out that function calls X/Y/Z are used, point them out, and talk about what they're expected to do.

I don't believe the "implemented in a week" claim, but at least someone could build a black box that might meet your needs. If you said, "This sorts the $FLORBS", or "This needs to quickly calculate checksums for integrity" or "This needs to do ${COMPLICATED_MATH} quickly on ${STUFF}", people can at least try to implement it. An inefficient but working implementation will meet some people's needs, even if your proprietary drivers use code thich has been heavily optimized for speed, reliability, or correctness. Assuming anyone cares enough to write them.

Re:Hahahahahaha

[JonJ]

They've had a binary driver out for some time, I'm using broadcom-sta on my IdeaPad.

Re:This is fantastic

[BobNET]

While you're at it, any chance of releasing the source for your video decoders?

You mean like this, or something else?

Thanks

[msclrhd]

To the Broadcom team and everyone else who made this happen: you have my heartfelt thanks.

Re:Where's the code?

[NiteMair]

I found it here:

http://git.kernel.org/?p=linux/kernel/git/gregkh/staging-next-2.6.git;a=commit;h=a9533e7ea3c410fed2f4cd8b3e1e213e48529b75

Looks like MIT/BSD style license.

Re:Hahahahahaha

[ciggieposeur]

See the b43 driver and b43-fwcutter utility.

Re:That could be very nice for Tomato Firmware

[LWATCDR]

Yes and it opens up the option to use Broadcom chips on all sorts of embedded devices.
Including those running on ARM, PPC, Mips, SH4 and goodness knows what else.

Re:Sooo now I can give Linux a serious try?

[Anonymous Coward]

Ubuntu has been able to install the propietary drivers automatically for a long time now.

Re:Firmware?

[david.given]

Right, I found the source (for some reason cut-and-paste isn't working into a Slashdot text box, but it's prominently linked by another story).

Yes, these drivers require firmware. No, this release does not include source for the firmware. You still need to have the binary blob from Broadcom to make the drivers work.