Re: [Madwifi-users] what is HAL?
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From: silas b. <spi...@ho...> - 2004-06-05 05:56:56
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Hi Leb, IMHO the post is a bit long for an FAQ entry. This part paraphrases it pretty well. <Snip> Editor's note: As pointed out (Not a quote) by Sam & Greg the Atheros HAL is *NIX kernel agnostic. The same binary HAL will function under Linux/BSD/Solaris/Ect (In fact it was originally written for the BSD platform) therefore it cannot be a derived work of the linux kernel. </Snip> We add: See <link to Greg's original post> for more details. Cheers, Silas =0) >From: pl...@ir... >To: mad...@li... >Subject: Re: [Madwifi-users] what is HAL? >Date: Fri, 4 Jun 2004 14:20:50 -0700 > >I think that the articles that Alexander points to are useful as background >and I believe Greg's response is really the seminal discourse on the >subject. In fact, his post helped me sell using madwifi at client of mine, >because I think it clearly shows that the HAL is NOT any kind of derived >work. The key sentence being: > >It incorporates no kernel header files, calls no kernel services, and >inherits no system data structures that might be passed in and has "zero >knowledge of and does not play with fundamental internal Linux behavior." > >I would strongly suggest that we include the following two posts verbatim >in the HAL FAQ. > >All the text is original, I just reformatted it and fixed one small typo >("->') in Greg's post. > >Best, > >leb > >From: Alexander Wirtz >[FYI] Linux: The GPL And Binary Modules >2003-12-08 02:03 > >Quite an interesting read, as Linus speaks very clearly on this subject: >http://kerneltrap.org/node/view/1735 >./ted here: >http://slashdot.org/articles/03/12/08/0416229.shtml > >Regards, >Alexander > >From: Greg Chesson >Re: [FYI] Linux: The GPL And Binary Modules >2003-12-08 09:45 > >I saw this, and it is useful; especially since Linus explains what is and >what is not a derived work of the kernel. Using his explanation and >definitions, the binary hal module in Madwifi is most definitely not a >derived work of the Linux kernel. It incorporates no kernel header files, >calls no kernel services, and inherits no system data structures that might >be passed in and has "zero knowledge of and does not play with fundamental >internal Linux behavior." > >Furthermore, it operates without modification on other operating systems: >the *BSD family as well as some other embedded projects in development. The >hal was in fact first developed on FreeBSD and then moved to Linux. Also, >the bulk of the Madwifi driver is in fact GPL and Open Source unlike full >binary-only drivers, e.g. NVidia and many others that are clearly derived >works according to Linus" note. If you compare the size of the .o files of >the binary hal and other two files, you might think that the hal is bigger >than it actually is. That's because the module really contains 3 complete >hals - one for each of the 3 families of chipsets in the field. So the >true size of the code for one chip family is about 1/3 the size of the >file. > >So, again.... thanks for the post. > >g >-- >Lawrence E. Bakst >pl...@ir... > > > >------------------------------------------------------- >This SF.Net email is sponsored by the new InstallShield X. >From Windows to Linux, servers to mobile, InstallShield X is the one >installation-authoring solution that does it all. Learn more and >evaluate today! http://www.installshield.com/Dev2Dev/0504 >_______________________________________________ >Madwifi-users mailing list >Mad...@li... >https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/madwifi-users _________________________________________________________________ Watch the online reality show Mixed Messages with a friend and enter to win a trip to NY http://www.msnmessenger-download.click-url.com/go/onm00200497ave/direct/01/ |