From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 From: Michael Buesch Subject: Re: ANNOUNCE: SFLC helps developers assess ar5k (enabling free Atheros HAL) Date: Wed, 15 Nov 2006 19:42:14 +0100 Message-ID: <200611151942.14596.mb@bu3sch.de> References: <20061115031025.GH3451@tuxdriver.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Cc: madwifi-devel@lists.sourceforge.net, lwn@lwn.net, mcgrof@gmail.com, david.kimdon@devicescape.com, linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org, netdev@vger.kernel.org Return-path: To: "John W. Linville" In-Reply-To: <20061115031025.GH3451@tuxdriver.com> Content-Disposition: inline Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org List-Id: netdev.vger.kernel.org On Wednesday 15 November 2006 04:10, John W. Linville wrote: > It is my pleasure to announce that the SFLC [1] has assisted the ar5k > developers in evaluating the development history of Reyk Floeter's > OpenBSD reverse-engineered Atheros HAL, ar5k [2]. SFLC's assessment > leads to the conclusion that free software developers should not be > worried about using/extending ar5k or porting ar5k to other platforms. > > In the past there were serious questions raised and even dire warnings > made about ar5k's copyright status. The purpose of this statement > is to refute those claims and to publicly clarify ar5k's status > to developers. > > SFLC has made independent inquiries with the OpenBSD team regarding the > development history of ar5k source. The responses received provide > a reasonable basis for SFLC to believe that the OpenBSD developers > who worked on ar5k did not misappropriate code, and that the ar5k > implementation is OpenBSD's original copyrighted work. > > This announcement should serve to remove the cloud which has prevented > progress towards an in-kernel driver for Atheros hardware. This should > be of particular interest to those involved with the DadWifi project [3]. > > I'd like to take this opportunity to thank the folks at the SFLC for > their hard work, and I'd also like to personally thank Luis Rodriguez > for the role he played in coordinating contact between the SFLC and > the community at large. > > Thanks! > > John > > [1] http://www.softwarefreedom.org/ > [2] http://team.vantronix.net/ar5k/ > [3] http://marc.theaimsgroup.com/?l=linux-netdev&m=116113064513921&w=2 So, who is finally going to _DO_ the work? Some of you know that I started an atheros driver at http://bu3sch.de/ath/atheros.git/ It's not really a driver, yet, as nobody got to continue on the specification, so I was stuck. Now that it seems to be ok to use these openbsd sources, should I port them to my driver framework? I looked over the ar5k code and, well, I don't like it. ;) I don't really like having a HAL. I'd rather prefer a "real" driver without that HAL obfuscation. -- Greetings Michael.