i mean it is nice to open source their code, but given that it has pretty much been reverse engineered already, isn't it a bit late!?
Especially since the kernel developers aren't going to let anything with a HAL into Linus' tree, entirely for architectural reasons. But it makes the best version of the driver at the moment fully free.
Right now, there is a larger team working on madwifi than just Sam, and the kernel team is working on ath5, so I don't think you're right this time.
There is another reason to expect this to result in a code improvement. The same netbooks that have the Atheros wifi often have Intel 3D as part of the chipset. Intel 3D is known to be horrible on Windows. Part of the problem is that desktop vendors don't want Intel 3D to be good, because they want to sell graphics cards. So, Intel has little incentive to make it better.
Except under X, that is. As far as I can tell, it works great under X. The X team at Intel is either not bothered with marketing hold-back; or because the source is public or satisfies a server market, they can justify a need for quality.
ATI will improve over time, and they will probably drive most of it themselves. Open Source will help them do that.
I have a new Acer Aspire One, with Atheros wireless, and have mostly got it running Debian properly - the biggest bugs I'm seeing may be in Debian Lenny rather than anything about Aspire One. A nice thing about this HAL release is that it makes Sam's virtual WAP software unquestionably Free - even from the BSD perspective. Did you ever want to connect to all of the WAPs you can reach at once, and be two or three different WAPs for others at the same time, all without carrying extra hardware? Sam's code can do that.
Being someone who speaks publicly about Open Source, I want to be seen using 100% Open Source. If you're going to talk the talk, you should walk the walk too.
It is nice to have an open source driver released, but it is NOT nice that an individual have to go jump through hoops and write it himself to make it happen.
That's how a lot of them happen. What's worse is when an individual, or team of individuals, work for years to make some proprietary code unnecessary, all of the time knowing that only when they are done will the manufacturer of the proprietary code place it in Open Source.
It was not firmware for downloading into the embedded processor of the wifi device. That came up because of the Bruce Byfield article recently covered here. There are BLOBs that execute on the main CPU, like nVidia's. I'm not sure if this HAL was ever one of those.
If you can prove that it bleeds off the batteries more than Linux, we would like to see numbers, please. Linux isn't in charge once the machine is asleep. It would mean that some device is left in a power-drawing mode. I can't say for sure that Atheros has anything to do with this. Are you confusing it with the other HAL on Linux systems?
This is interesting, as there are three Atheros drivers, all different. Madwifi uses the HAL. Ath5 is in the Linux trunk and doesn't (I think). Ath9 was developed by Atheros and probably uses the HAL but I didn't check. Sam was mostly interested in this because he wanted to work on mesh networking - it's good to see he's still involved.
The argument about BLOBs - binary loadable objects in the kernel - is not new, despite Bruce Byfield's recent report. I guess he just doesn't read the kernel list and other distro internal discussions, where this has been going on for a decade. And FSF did not "redefine" anything, they've always held that opinion.
It would be nice to draw a line at the hardware bus, with all above that Open Source and all below that whatever the hardware manufacturer likes because we don't deal with it. But BLOBs break that, because they are both above and below the bus. If we're going to handle the code, we can't really deny that there's a computer there running closed-source code. And given the degree to which wifi firmware sucks the world would be nicer if it was Free Software. Now, we just have to drive some sense into FCC, etc.
The Leonids meteor shower peaked on the 17th. I saw two bright meteors just going about my day. One Tuesday morning 5:45 over Oakland airport, one that evening 6:45 PM looking Southward from Las Vegas. Both observations were from areas with bright street lighting, and were very bright nonetheless.
Matt, there was a forecast meteor shower that peaked on Tuesday morning. At about 5:40 AM Tuesday morning I saw a bright meteor over Oakland airport from the central parking lot. At about 6:45 PM Wednesday I saw another looking South in Las Vegas.
I agree with everything you said. There's one problem, though.
It's Apache policy that contributions to Apache remain copyrighted by their authors or their employers. They don't belong to the Apache project.
Consider that Acme is using some Apache program. Acme sues Developer X for some patent infringement because Developer X is using the same Apache program, which Acme claims infringes their patent. Developer X appears as a defendant, and says (as Jacobsen said) Acme has a license from me that terminates because of their actions in bringing this suit. Acme tells the judge "there was nothing delivered with this program that would lead me to believe that I had any license with Developer X, and because Developer X did not mark his ownership of the copyright property I could not act on that information when considering whether to bring this suit, thus this license should not terminate". Developer X could lose that.
So, I believe that Apache should deliver a list of contributors with each program, so that it is clear to all whose copyrights they are using and who the license is from.
It's useful to note that some of Apache's largest corporate contributors or sponsors probably feel better if the license isn't enforcible. But protecting Apache and its developers from software patent lawsuits is important. I don't think it's being done as well as it could be.
Obviously I don't have proof of every developer's identity. The major projects generally do, however, use some sort of public-key ID to make sure they know who their folks are. Debian does ID their developers as part of the key-signing process. Thus I've looked over a number of developers passports and drivers licenses.
So, if one of those people committed some sort of deliberate crime like inserting a trojan, or uploading their employers code without permission in a way that seriously messes up the project, you can find and prosecute them.
In practice, we have never had to do that. I'm a little surprised, actually.
If you want to be protected by the patent terms of Open Source licenses, which for example was important in the JMRI case, you need to be properly identified. Otherwise, you may have a hard time proving to some judge that you should be protected because the plaintiff should have known that you were "Blue Salad".
Also, the project should make your identity known in the software package as copyright holder. Apache is terrible about this, they strip attribution from most stuff.
And I have a problem with anonomously-donated or anonymously-licensed Open Source, because how do you know the anonymous person actually had the right to donate and you won't run into trouble down the line.
Probably the best thing you can do is assign your copyright to an organization that keeps your identity private. Maybe FSF and some of the incorporated Open Source projects would do this.
If you want development of the solar system, there's a problem that should be solved first. The per-pound cost to low-earth-orbit for a non-life-support payload is at least $5000 using one of the U.S. lift options. To lift a payload requiring life support and soft re-entry is much more. You aren't going to get any significant development of the solar system while that is the case. So, I'd suggest it's the only thing NASA should be working on. Neither Shuttle or Orion do much toward addressing the problem.
I understand that there has been much productive fallout of near-earth-orbit space research. But near-earth space has been in the hands of private industry since Telstar.
Aren't you enunciating the broken-window paradox? When you manufacture a car, money is spent and the economy has the utility of a new car that can be used in productive ways within the economy. When you do space research, you don't get any utility added to the economy.
Is the United States currently in a position to fund scientific research? Shouldn't we concentrate on putting the country back on its feet now, and leave space flight for another generation?
You probably have some implementation issues there, that sounds so short that I'm tempted to ask if you might really be using wifi. Sure, lots of materials attenuate. Latency? I can't believe it would be worse with WiMax than BPL. BPL is generally implemented as one big bus containing the entire network, while with wifi or wimax you can implement cells.
Slashdot Mirror
Tears the screen... you mean the monitor loses horizontal sync?
Especially since the kernel developers aren't going to let anything with a HAL into Linus' tree, entirely for architectural reasons. But it makes the best version of the driver at the moment fully free.
Right now, there is a larger team working on madwifi than just Sam, and the kernel team is working on ath5, so I don't think you're right this time.
There is another reason to expect this to result in a code improvement. The same netbooks that have the Atheros wifi often have Intel 3D as part of the chipset. Intel 3D is known to be horrible on Windows. Part of the problem is that desktop vendors don't want Intel 3D to be good, because they want to sell graphics cards. So, Intel has little incentive to make it better.
Except under X, that is. As far as I can tell, it works great under X. The X team at Intel is either not bothered with marketing hold-back; or because the source is public or satisfies a server market, they can justify a need for quality.
ATI will improve over time, and they will probably drive most of it themselves. Open Source will help them do that.
Bruce
I have a new Acer Aspire One, with Atheros wireless, and have mostly got it running Debian properly - the biggest bugs I'm seeing may be in Debian Lenny rather than anything about Aspire One. A nice thing about this HAL release is that it makes Sam's virtual WAP software unquestionably Free - even from the BSD perspective. Did you ever want to connect to all of the WAPs you can reach at once, and be two or three different WAPs for others at the same time, all without carrying extra hardware? Sam's code can do that.
Being someone who speaks publicly about Open Source, I want to be seen using 100% Open Source. If you're going to talk the talk, you should walk the walk too.
The Slashdot article was confusing, and I didn't help. Sorry. It's not firmware in this case.
That's how a lot of them happen. What's worse is when an individual, or team of individuals, work for years to make some proprietary code unnecessary, all of the time knowing that only when they are done will the manufacturer of the proprietary code place it in Open Source.
It was not firmware for downloading into the embedded processor of the wifi device. That came up because of the Bruce Byfield article recently covered here. There are BLOBs that execute on the main CPU, like nVidia's. I'm not sure if this HAL was ever one of those.
Yes, I guess the OSPM could leave the wireless interface in a power-draining state.
One was code that a company always had the right to release. The will take repeal of misguided law.
Oops, I meant to say "more than windows", of course.
If you can prove that it bleeds off the batteries more than Linux, we would like to see numbers, please. Linux isn't in charge once the machine is asleep. It would mean that some device is left in a power-drawing mode. I can't say for sure that Atheros has anything to do with this. Are you confusing it with the other HAL on Linux systems?
The argument about BLOBs - binary loadable objects in the kernel - is not new, despite Bruce Byfield's recent report. I guess he just doesn't read the kernel list and other distro internal discussions, where this has been going on for a decade. And FSF did not "redefine" anything, they've always held that opinion.
It would be nice to draw a line at the hardware bus, with all above that Open Source and all below that whatever the hardware manufacturer likes because we don't deal with it. But BLOBs break that, because they are both above and below the bus. If we're going to handle the code, we can't really deny that there's a computer there running closed-source code. And given the degree to which wifi firmware sucks the world would be nicer if it was Free Software. Now, we just have to drive some sense into FCC, etc.
Bruce
Come to think of it, those were both on Tuesday.
Bruce
Matt, there was a forecast meteor shower that peaked on Tuesday morning. At about 5:40 AM Tuesday morning I saw a bright meteor over Oakland airport from the central parking lot. At about 6:45 PM Wednesday I saw another looking South in Las Vegas.
I agree with everything you said. There's one problem, though.
It's Apache policy that contributions to Apache remain copyrighted by their authors or their employers. They don't belong to the Apache project.
Consider that Acme is using some Apache program.
Acme sues Developer X for some patent infringement because Developer X is using the same Apache program, which Acme claims infringes their patent.
Developer X appears as a defendant, and says (as Jacobsen said) Acme has a license from me that terminates because of their actions in bringing this suit.
Acme tells the judge "there was nothing delivered with this program that would lead me to believe that I had any license with Developer X, and because Developer X did not mark his ownership of the copyright property I could not act on that information when considering whether to bring this suit, thus this license should not terminate".
Developer X could lose that.
So, I believe that Apache should deliver a list of contributors with each program, so that it is clear to all whose copyrights they are using and who the license is from.
It's useful to note that some of Apache's largest corporate contributors or sponsors probably feel better if the license isn't enforcible. But protecting Apache and its developers from software patent lawsuits is important. I don't think it's being done as well as it could be.
Bruce
Obviously I don't have proof of every developer's identity. The major projects generally do, however, use some sort of public-key ID to make sure they know who their folks are. Debian does ID their developers as part of the key-signing process. Thus I've looked over a number of developers passports and drivers licenses.
So, if one of those people committed some sort of deliberate crime like inserting a trojan, or uploading their employers code without permission in a way that seriously messes up the project, you can find and prosecute them. In practice, we have never had to do that. I'm a little surprised, actually.
Here's an article I wrote about this 10 years ago!.
Bruce
If you want to be protected by the patent terms of Open Source licenses, which for example was important in the JMRI case, you need to be properly identified. Otherwise, you may have a hard time proving to some judge that you should be protected because the plaintiff should have known that you were "Blue Salad".
Also, the project should make your identity known in the software package as copyright holder. Apache is terrible about this, they strip attribution from most stuff.
And I have a problem with anonomously-donated or anonymously-licensed Open Source, because how do you know the anonymous person actually had the right to donate and you won't run into trouble down the line.
Probably the best thing you can do is assign your copyright to an organization that keeps your identity private. Maybe FSF and some of the incorporated Open Source projects would do this.
Bruce
If you want development of the solar system, there's a problem that should be solved first. The per-pound cost to low-earth-orbit for a non-life-support payload is at least $5000 using one of the U.S. lift options. To lift a payload requiring life support and soft re-entry is much more. You aren't going to get any significant development of the solar system while that is the case. So, I'd suggest it's the only thing NASA should be working on. Neither Shuttle or Orion do much toward addressing the problem.
I understand that there has been much productive fallout of near-earth-orbit space research. But near-earth space has been in the hands of private industry since Telstar.
The rovers have cost about 8 Million for every mile traveled on Mars.
Aren't you enunciating the broken-window paradox? When you manufacture a car, money is spent and the economy has the utility of a new car that can be used in productive ways within the economy. When you do space research, you don't get any utility added to the economy.
Is the United States currently in a position to fund scientific research? Shouldn't we concentrate on putting the country back on its feet now, and leave space flight for another generation?
You probably have some implementation issues there, that sounds so short that I'm tempted to ask if you might really be using wifi. Sure, lots of materials attenuate. Latency? I can't believe it would be worse with WiMax than BPL. BPL is generally implemented as one big bus containing the entire network, while with wifi or wimax you can implement cells.
1. Defeat the interlock on the door of your microwave oven.
2. Insert head.
3. Push button.
Voila! Scrambled eggs!