Atheros wi-fi card drivers (?)

Atheros wi-fi card drivers (?)

[Mateusz Berezecki]

Hi list members,

I've been doing some reverse engineering of madwifi HAL (Hardware 
Abstraction Layer) object file recently.
I ended up with an almost complete source code for one chipset so far 
and I was wondering if it is legal
to publish such source code on the internet? The note on a card says it 
is "protected by us patents <patents number list>".
Does the patent apply to the reverse engineered source code, or just to 
the hardware? Or is it even legal to create such source code?
I would like to ask for some comments regarding this case. And let's say 
the driver works, would it be included into kernel source ?



regards
Mateusz Berezecki

Re: Atheros wi-fi card drivers (?)

[Raphael Jacquot]

Mateusz Berezecki wrote:
> Hi list members,
> 
> I've been doing some reverse engineering of madwifi HAL (Hardware 
> Abstraction Layer) object file recently.
> I ended up with an almost complete source code for one chipset so far 
> and I was wondering if it is legal
> to publish such source code on the internet? The note on a card says it 
> is "protected by us patents <patents number list>".
> Does the patent apply to the reverse engineered source code, or just to 
> the hardware? Or is it even legal to create such source code?
> I would like to ask for some comments regarding this case. And let's say 
> the driver works, would it be included into kernel source ?
> 
> 
> 
> regards
> Mateusz Berezecki

as your name appears european, there are no software patents (yet ?) so 
you should be able to release that code as required for interoperability

however, IANAL

imho, the better solution is now for you to create and release a 
documentation of what does what in the chipset, so that *someone else* 
recreates the thing from scratch.

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Re: Atheros wi-fi card drivers (?)

[Rene Rebe]

Hi,

Raphael Jacquot wrote:

> as your name appears european, there are no software patents (yet ?) so 
> you should be able to release that code as required for interoperability

The release of that source does not depend on software patents (which 
seem to be acked yesterday for europe ... ;-()

However with software patents a company could sue you for violating a 
patent wheter you wrote the code or reverse engeneered it. E.g. for a 
"transmitting information without cables, e.g. binary encoded via a 
radio signal modulated this and that way. claims: any implementation 
that transmit information without cables (including birds in the air) 
... and so on the usual patent fluff ..." patent.

Yours,

-- 
René Rebe - Rubensstr. 64 - 12157 Berlin (Europe / Germany)
             http://www.exactcode.de/ | http://www.t2-project.org/
             +49 (0)30  255 897 45

Re: Atheros wi-fi card drivers (?)

[Bernd Petrovitsch]

On Mon, 2005-03-07 at 16:55 +0100, Raphael Jacquot wrote:
[...]
> as your name appears european, there are no software patents (yet ?) so 

Alas, this is wrong. The EPO is issuing masses of software patents since
years (though they are more or less explicitly[0] excluded from
patentability in the EPC).
So they must not have been granted in the first place - nevertheless
they are there.

> you should be able to release that code as required for interoperability
> 
> however, IANAL

Me too!

	Bernd

[0]: Depending on how to interpret the words "software as such".
-- 
Firmix Software GmbH                   http://www.firmix.at/
mobil: +43 664 4416156                 fax: +43 1 7890849-55
          Embedded Linux Development and Services

Re: Atheros wi-fi card drivers (?)

[Alan Cox]

On Llu, 2005-03-07 at 15:45, Mateusz Berezecki wrote:
> I've been doing some reverse engineering of madwifi HAL (Hardware 
> Abstraction Layer) object file recently.
> I ended up with an almost complete source code for one chipset so far 
> and I was wondering if it is legal
> to publish such source code on the internet?

You should normally avoid doing this. Instead write a description of the
chip registers and functions from the source you have produced and get
someone else to write a chip driver from that. This avoids the risk of
you being held to have "copied" their code - in the EU while you have
rights to reverse engineer for interoperability in general if you copy
their code that may still be a copyright violation.

>  The note on a card says it 
> is "protected by us patents <patents number list>".
> Does the patent apply to the reverse engineered source code, or just to 
> the hardware? Or is it even legal to create such source code?

Depends if you are in the USA. To answer that question you would also
need to look at the US patents. If you are in the USA then you should
not do this even though it is what patent law was intended for because
the US legal system is broken.

Another question would be "do Atheros care" as I understand their
fundamental issue was compliance with FCC regulations rather than
concerns about free software.

> I would like to ask for some comments regarding this case. And let's say 
> the driver works, would it be included into kernel source ?

There is other code in the kernel where reverse engineering was used. 

Alan

Re: Atheros wi-fi card drivers (?)

[Lee Revell]

On Mon, 2005-03-07 at 17:26 +0000, Alan Cox wrote:
> On Llu, 2005-03-07 at 15:45, Mateusz Berezecki wrote:
> > I've been doing some reverse engineering of madwifi HAL (Hardware 
> > Abstraction Layer) object file recently.
> > I ended up with an almost complete source code for one chipset so far 
> > and I was wondering if it is legal
> > to publish such source code on the internet?
> 
> You should normally avoid doing this. Instead write a description of the
> chip registers and functions from the source you have produced and get
> someone else to write a chip driver from that. This avoids the risk of
> you being held to have "copied" their code - in the EU while you have
> rights to reverse engineer for interoperability in general if you copy
> their code that may still be a copyright violation.
> 

Just to clarify, this also applies to the USA.

> There is other code in the kernel where reverse engineering was used. 
> 

Heh, that is putting it mildly.  Linux driver support would be nowhere
without reverse engineering.

Lee

Re: Atheros wi-fi card drivers (?)

[Roland Dreier]

Not really an answer to your question but are you aware of the OpenBSD
free Atheros HAL work (as part of the OpenBSD ath driver)?

 - R.

Re: Atheros wi-fi card drivers (?)

[Christoph Hellwig]

On Mon, Mar 07, 2005 at 04:45:38PM +0100, Mateusz Berezecki wrote:
> Hi list members,
> 
> I've been doing some reverse engineering of madwifi HAL (Hardware 
> Abstraction Layer) object file recently.
> I ended up with an almost complete source code for one chipset so far 

A different one than the one that's supported by OpenBSD's reverse-engineered
HAL?

Re: Atheros wi-fi card drivers (?)

[Mateusz Berezecki]

> A different one than the one that's supported by OpenBSD's reverse-engineered
> HAL?
I guess so :-)

-- 
Mateusz Berezecki <mateuszb@gmail.com>