Help porting wireless InProComm IPN 2220 driver to 2.6

Help porting wireless InProComm IPN 2220 driver to 2.6

[Runar Ingebrigtsen]

Hi,

D-Link made a GPL driver for the InProComm IPN 2220 wireless chipset
found in Linksys cards.

Source: ftp://ftp.dlink.com/GPL/di624M/di624m_fw10_source.tar.gz

I really need this driver in the 2.6 kernel, as my current setup with
ndiswrapper and the neti2220.inf is unusable due to bad throughput.

If anyone would help me I'd be willing to pay an amount for a working
driver in the 2.6 tree. I would also need to get help using the driver
with Ubuntu.

The hardware is a Packard Bell EasyNote A5560 laptop:
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/HardwareSupportMachinesLaptopsPackardBell?highlight=%28packard%29%7C%28bell%29

-- 
Runar Ingebrigtsen <runar@mopo.no>
mopo as

Re: Help porting wireless InProComm IPN 2220 driver to 2.6

[Daniel J Blueman]

The DI624M device is based on the Atheros 802.11g chipset, so should
work fine with the madwifi driver
[http://sourceforge.net/projects/madwifi/].

The file D-Link has made available contains either this or a
closed-source driver.

Runar Ingebrigtsen wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> D-Link made a GPL driver for the InProComm IPN 2220 wireless chipset
> found in Linksys cards.
> 
> Source: ftp://ftp.dlink.com/GPL/di624M/di624m_fw10_source.tar.gz
> 
> I really need this driver in the 2.6 kernel, as my current setup with
> ndiswrapper and the neti2220.inf is unusable due to bad throughput.
> 
> If anyone would help me I'd be willing to pay an amount for a working
> driver in the 2.6 tree. I would also need to get help using the driver
> with Ubuntu.
> 
> The hardware is a Packard Bell EasyNote A5560 laptop:
> https://wiki.ubuntu.com/HardwareSupportMachinesLaptopsPackardBell?highlight=%28packard%29%7C%28bell%29
> 
> -- 
> Runar Ingebrigtsen <runar@mopo.no>
> mopo as
___
Daniel J Blueman

Re: Help porting wireless InProComm IPN 2220 driver to 2.6

[Andreas Steinmetz]

Daniel J Blueman wrote:
> The file D-Link has made available contains either this or a
> closed-source driver.
> 

This is getting interesting. The tar archive contains a kernel source
tree (looks like 2.4.26). This kernel source tree contains the directory:

linux-2.4.x/drivers/net/wireless/inpro2220

Within this directory there's the file IPN2220 which is a mips object
file, so this is a binary only driver.

Now, even if this is built as a module the module "source" is imported
in the kernel source tree, i.e. it is not separate from the kernel
source. IMHO I do see this then as a GPL violation that goes beyond the
Linus tolerated level.

-- 
Andreas Steinmetz                       SPAMmers use robotrap@domdv.de

Re: Help porting wireless InProComm IPN 2220 driver to 2.6

[Daniel J Blueman]

On 9/15/05, Andreas Steinmetz <ast@domdv.de> wrote:
> Daniel J Blueman wrote:
> > The file D-Link has made available contains either this or a
> > closed-source driver.
> 
> This is getting interesting. The tar archive contains a kernel source
> tree (looks like 2.4.26). This kernel source tree contains the directory:
> 
> linux-2.4.x/drivers/net/wireless/inpro2220
> 
> Within this directory there's the file IPN2220 which is a mips object
> file, so this is a binary only driver.
> 
> Now, even if this is built as a module the module "source" is imported
> in the kernel source tree, i.e. it is not separate from the kernel
> source. IMHO I do see this then as a GPL violation that goes beyond the
> Linus tolerated level.

This depends if the module uses any symbols exported from the kernel
with EXPORT_SYMBOL_GPL(), and clearly the module license - 'strings'
should be enough do check this is you don't have a MIPS platform to
hand.

See http://www.uwsg.iu.edu/hypermail/linux/kernel/0110.2/0369.html .
___
Daniel J Blueman

Re: Help porting wireless InProComm IPN 2220 driver to 2.6

[Andreas Steinmetz]

Daniel J Blueman wrote:
> This depends if the module uses any symbols exported from the kernel
> with EXPORT_SYMBOL_GPL(), and clearly the module license - 'strings'
> should be enough do check this is you don't have a MIPS platform to
> hand.

Even then (I didn't check the binary yet), is it really legal to
distribute a kernel source tree which contains sources with statements
like the following?

/******************************************************************************
Copyright (c) 2002-2003 Inprocomm, Inc.

All rights reserved. Copying, compilation, modification, distribution
or any other use whatsoever of this material is strictly prohibited
except in accordance with a Software License Agreement with Inprocomm, Inc.
******************************************************************************/

This doesn't look exactly like GPL compatability to me, still it is
_within_ the kernel tree.

Note that I don't say they can't distribute a binary only module, it is
the fact that it is located _within_ the kernel tree that, ahem,
irritates me.
I wouldn't say anything if there would be a separate 'source' tree for
the proprietary module but: is distributing a kernel source with
proprietary binary code embedded really legal?
-- 
Andreas Steinmetz                       SPAMmers use robotrap@domdv.de

Re: Help porting wireless InProComm IPN 2220 driver to 2.6

[Arjan van de Ven]

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> This depends if the module uses any symbols exported from the kernel
> with EXPORT_SYMBOL_GPL(), and clearly the module license - 'strings'
> should be enough do check this is you don't have a MIPS platform to
> hand.

actually it doesn't.

For one, there is section 2 of the GPL which clearly forbids this
For another, EXPORT_SYMBOL_GPL presence does NOT mean that it's ok to
use EXPORT_SYMBOL symbols without any license/copyright considerations
at all. The kernel is GPL licensed, without any exceptions.


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