Atheros and rt2x00 driver

Atheros and rt2x00 driver

[Jon Jahren]

Hello, I'm new to the mailling list, and couldn't find any traces of
discussing this anywhere. I was wondering why neither the atheros driver
http://madwifi.sourceforge.net, or the rt2x00 driver
http://rt2x00.serialmonkey.com/wiki/index.php/Main_Page is included in
the kernel?
Regards
Jon Jahren

Re: Atheros and rt2x00 driver

[joebob]

On Wed, 17 Aug 2005, Jon Jahren wrote:
> Hello, I'm new to the mailling list, and couldn't find any traces of
> discussing this anywhere. I was wondering why neither the atheros driver
> http://madwifi.sourceforge.net, or the rt2x00 driver
> http://rt2x00.serialmonkey.com/wiki/index.php/Main_Page is included in
> the kernel?

That's because a) these drivers are not "proven stable" -- ie they have
not released a well-tested, known-good, working version of the software
and b) they haven't asked for their software to be included in the kernel
(at least in the case of madwifi, anyways). c) madwifi also will probably
never be integrated into the mainstream kernel because it contains
binary-only proprietary software licensed by atheros communications (under
NDA by the developer). Since the kernel is released GPL, the source must
be made available for all parts of the kernel if desired. Code released
closed source cannot be included else we violate the terms of the GPL.
I'm not sure about rt2x00, but it may have a similar deficiency.

By the way, the best place to ask about why XX isn't included in the
kernel is with the developers of XX unless they tell you to ask here :)

Hope this clears some stuff up for you. ciao.

-kelsey

Re: Atheros and rt2x00 driver

[Daniel J Blueman]

On Wed, 17 Aug 2005, Jon Jahren wrote:
> Hello, I'm new to the mailling list, and couldn't find any traces of
> discussing this anywhere. I was wondering why neither the atheros driver
> http://madwifi.sourceforge.net, or the rt2x00 driver
> http://rt2x00.serialmonkey.com /wiki/index.php/Main_Page is included in
> the kernel? 

There is a good chance the rt2x00 driver will get into the kernel tree
in time, since there is no firmware to upload - Ralink Tech
(www.ralink.com.tw) took a design decision to incorporate the firmware
into an EEPROM on-board, allowing their driver to be GPL'd, and the
rt2x00 is a Linux-specific rewrite which is stabilising well.
___
Daniel J Blueman

Re: Atheros and rt2x00 driver

[David S. Miller]

From: Jon Jahren <shaoran.85@gmail.com>
Date: Wed, 17 Aug 2005 19:15:43 +0200

> Hello, I'm new to the mailling list, and couldn't find any traces of
> discussing this anywhere. I was wondering why neither the atheros driver
> http://madwifi.sourceforge.net, or the rt2x00 driver
> http://rt2x00.serialmonkey.com/wiki/index.php/Main_Page is included in
> the kernel?

Because the Atheros driver has binary-only components.

Re: Atheros and rt2x00 driver

[Mateusz Berezecki]

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Daniel J Blueman <daniel.blueman@gmail.com> wrote:
-> 
-> There is a good chance the rt2x00 driver will get into the kernel tree
-> in time, since there is no firmware to upload - Ralink Tech
-> (www.ralink.com.tw) took a design decision to incorporate the firmware
-> into an EEPROM on-board, allowing their driver to be GPL'd, and the
-> rt2x00 is a Linux-specific rewrite which is stabilising well.
 
  the same applies to atheros. they got stuff either in eeprom or in
  driver. no firmware necessary. 
  
  there is an ongoing project for atheros cards.
  work in progress located at http://mateusz.agrest.org/atheros/


  /M

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( >__< ) PGP: 5F1C 86DF 89DB BFE9 899E 8CBE EB60 B7A7 43F9 5808 
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Re: Atheros and rt2x00 driver

[Jeff Garzik]

Mateusz Berezecki wrote:
> Daniel J Blueman <daniel.blueman@gmail.com> wrote:
> -> 
> -> There is a good chance the rt2x00 driver will get into the kernel tree
> -> in time, since there is no firmware to upload - Ralink Tech
> -> (www.ralink.com.tw) took a design decision to incorporate the firmware
> -> into an EEPROM on-board, allowing their driver to be GPL'd, and the
> -> rt2x00 is a Linux-specific rewrite which is stabilising well.
>  
>   the same applies to atheros. they got stuff either in eeprom or in
>   driver. no firmware necessary. 
>   
>   there is an ongoing project for atheros cards.
>   work in progress located at http://mateusz.agrest.org/atheros/


There is still the open question of whether this is legal enough to 
include in the kernel :(

I really would have preferred a cleanroom approach, like that taken by 
the forcedeth driver authors.

	Jeff

Re: Atheros and rt2x00 driver

[Lee Revell]

On Wed, 2005-08-17 at 19:11 +0100, Daniel J Blueman wrote:
> Ralink Tech (www.ralink.com.tw) took a design decision to incorporate
> the firmware into an EEPROM on-board, allowing their driver to be
> GPL'd 

Binary only firmware and firmware loading is perfectly compatible with
the GPL, as long as the vendor includes a license to redistribute the
firmware.  The problem was that vendors were distributing the firmware
embedded in the driver code as a big hex string, without a separate
license, which made the firmware fall under the GPL, which make the
whole kernel undistributable as there's no source code for the firmware.

Lee

Re: Atheros and rt2x00 driver

[Florian Weimer]

* Jeff Garzik:

> There is still the open question of whether this is legal enough to 
> include in the kernel :(

Are you referring to FTC issues, or potential copyright/trade secret
issues?

The FTC issues are shared by many (most?) wireless drivers.  The
copyright/trade secret issues might be worked around by basing the
work on the OpenBSD version of that driver (and someone is actually
working on that).

Re: Atheros and rt2x00 driver

[Mateusz Berezecki]

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Florian Weimer <fw@deneb.enyo.de> wrote:
-> The FTC issues are shared by many (most?) wireless drivers.  The
-> copyright/trade secret issues might be worked around by basing the
-> work on the OpenBSD version of that driver (and someone is actually
-> working on that).

 the problem with openbsd version of the hal is that it is - sorry to
 say that - fundamentally broken, at least it was last time I was
 checking. It misses just too much functionality. Apart from that, the
 work I'm doing is partially based on that openbsd stuff :)
 (no, this doesn't contradict what I wrote above)



 Mateusz

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Re: Atheros and rt2x00 driver

[Florian Weimer]

* Mateusz Berezecki:

> Florian Weimer <fw@deneb.enyo.de> wrote:
> -> The FTC issues are shared by many (most?) wireless drivers.  The
> -> copyright/trade secret issues might be worked around by basing the
> -> work on the OpenBSD version of that driver (and someone is actually
> -> working on that).
>
>  the problem with openbsd version of the hal is that it is - sorry to
>  say that - fundamentally broken, at least it was last time I was
>  checking.

It's better than nothing, that is, it worked for us when we gave it a
try.  And it seems to be relatively unencumbered.

Re: Atheros and rt2x00 driver

[Denis Vlasenko]

On Wednesday 31 August 2005 11:16, Mateusz Berezecki wrote:
> Florian Weimer <fw@deneb.enyo.de> wrote:
> -> The FTC issues are shared by many (most?) wireless drivers.  The
> -> copyright/trade secret issues might be worked around by basing the
> -> work on the OpenBSD version of that driver (and someone is actually
> -> working on that).
> 
>  the problem with openbsd version of the hal is that it is - sorry to
>  say that - fundamentally broken, at least it was last time I was
>  checking. It misses just too much functionality. Apart from that, the

What it can do? In particular, can it:
* send packets with arbitrary contents? In particular, packets
  shorter than 3-address 802.11 header? packets with WEP bit set?
  Does it allow to do WEP encoding by host instead of hal?
  Any weird limitations?
* receive packets?
* tune to the given channel (or freq)?

If it can do that, everything else IIRC can be done in software.
Really, what prevents us from, say, beacons every 1/10s?

>  work I'm doing is partially based on that openbsd stuff :)
>  (no, this doesn't contradict what I wrote above)

Nice to see you are in "release early" crowd.

http://mateusz.agrest.org/atheros/:
may I suggest using atheros-20050805 instead of atheros-08052005
(will maintain correct sorting order in 2006,2007...)
--
vda

Re: Atheros and rt2x00 driver

[Mateusz Berezecki]

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Florian Weimer <fw@deneb.enyo.de> wrote:
-> >  the problem with openbsd version of the hal is that it is - sorry to
-> >  say that - fundamentally broken, at least it was last time I was
-> >  checking.
-> 
-> It's better than nothing, that is, it worked for us when we gave it a
-> try.  And it seems to be relatively unencumbered.

   ok, maybe it sounded to harsh. What I really meant was that when I
   was doing my research on the atheros chipset I revealed some
   differences between what is actually in HAL and what is in openbsd
   driver. It could have been due to the update schedule of madwifi. It
   is always easier to be up to date with the vendor supported driver
   than with reverse engineered one. Anyways what I saw was that some
   parts were missing in openbsd. I don't know how much in overall.


   Mateusz

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Re: Atheros and rt2x00 driver

[Mateusz Berezecki]

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Denis Vlasenko <vda@ilport.com.ua> wrote:
-> What it can do? In particular, can it:
-> * send packets with arbitrary contents? In particular, packets
->   shorter than 3-address 802.11 header? packets with WEP bit set?
->   Does it allow to do WEP encoding by host instead of hal?
->   Any weird limitations?
-> * receive packets?
-> * tune to the given channel (or freq)?
-> 
  
   I don't really know to which version you are referring to. If you
   wrote about OpenBSD then I can't give an authoritative answer. 
   
-> If it can do that, everything else IIRC can be done in software.
-> Really, what prevents us from, say, beacons every 1/10s?

   Yes, that is a very nature of atheros radio chips. It is simplier to
   tell what you can't do in software with these chipsets. This
   complicates writing a driver a bit too ;-)
   
-> 
-> Nice to see you are in "release early" crowd.
-> 
-> http://mateusz.agrest.org/atheros/:
-> may I suggest using atheros-20050805 instead of atheros-08052005
-> (will maintain correct sorting order in 2006,2007...)

  Hummm... these are old patches :) the new site is located at

        http://www.ath-driver.org 
 
  As I'm going to put separate patch snapshots out there too, I will
  change the naming order.


  Mateusz
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