Alan Pope wrote: > Hi Alec, > > On Mon, Jul 30, 2007 at 09:39:44AM +0100, Alec Wright wrote: > >> On Mon, 2007-07-30 at 08:30 +0000, Alan Pope wrote: >> >>> Hi Chris, >>> >>> On Mon, Jul 30, 2007 at 08:45:40AM +0100, Chris Rowson wrote: >>> >>>> This bug has been driving me round the bend now for three releases of >>>> Ubuntu. Edgy, Feisty and Gutsy. I really don't know why it isn't >>>> getting fixed, any ideas? >>>> >>>> >>> Get a better supported network card? :S >>> >> But surely we want to encourage as many people as possible to use >> ubuntu. You wouldn't want to get a new network card for linux, would >> you? It's easier to add a few lines to code to network manager. >> >> > > You also want to encourage hardware vendors to make cards that have nice > open drivers that dont require stupid kludges like madwifi and ndiswrapper > to make them work. > > (stupid as in architecturally insane, not stupid as in bad code) > > The best way to make a hardware vendor notice these things is to _not_ buy > their kit in the first place - vote with your wallet. I bought a laptop > which is intel throughout, no nvidia, no ati, no bonkers network stuff. > > This of course doesn't help everyone, I am just stuggesting that the device > in question isn't a lost cause, a plugin pcmcia/usb wireless adapter could > be used to overcome the current bug/hurdle. > > Cheers, > Al. > > Actually, the Madwifi driver is GPL(v2), the reason it's not classed as "open" is because part of the driver (the ath_hal part to be exact) has to be distributed in a binary only form. This seems to be due to some FCC law. From the README:
"The ath_hal module contains the Atheros Hardware Access Layer (HAL). This code manages much of the chip-specific operation of the driver. The HAL is provided in a binary-only form in order to comply with FCC regulations. In particular, a radio transmitter can only be operated at power levels and on frequency channels for which it is approved. The FCC requires that a software-defined radio cannot be configured by the user to operate outside the approved power levels and frequency channels. This makes it difficult to open-source code that enforces limits on the power levels, frequency channels and other parameters of the radio transmitter. See http://ftp.fcc.gov/Bureaus/Engineering_Technology/Orders/2001/fcc01264.pdf for the specific FCC regulation. Because the module is provided in a binary-only form it is marked "Proprietary"; this means when you load it you will see messages that your system is now "tainted". A detailed discussion of the pros and cons of this design can be found at http://madwifi.org/wiki/HAL " Terence -- ubuntu-uk@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-uk https://wiki.kubuntu.org/UKTeam/
