Re: [RFC V2] bcm43xx-mac80211: Provide information to allow transmission rate decreases

[Larry Finger <larry.finger@lwfinger.net>]

Johannes Berg wrote:
> On Thu, 2007-08-02 at 15:03 +0200, Michael Buesch wrote:
> 
>> So, what's the point of this "excessive retries" field anyway?
>> We already have an "acked" bit. So if it's not set, but we expected an
>> ack, what's the point of setting excessive retries in the driver?
>> the rc algo sould know _anyway_, as it has the "acked" and the
>> "we wanted to have an ack" bits.
> 
> No idea. I guess you get to dig through the code and remove it ;)

When I first started investigating the problem of mac80211 not reducing the rate as I moved away 
from the AP, it seemed to me that the decision regarding excessive retries should be made in 
mac80211, not in the driver; however, I have had extreme difficulty in getting any changes into 
mac80211 on several occasions. Linville assures me that he has had private discussions about this 
problem; however, I needed a quick fix and couldn't stand any protracted discussion and/or review 
delays. I knew Michael would be tough, but that his comments would not be delayed.

At the moment, I have more pressing matters to resolve than fixing this problem in mac80211; 
however, I feel really good that the port of bcm43xx-softmac to mac80211 has this issue.

Larry