Re: [Devil-linux-develop] new hostap driver and more ...

[Emmanuel E. <ee...@fr...>]

Hi Friedrich!

here is the COPYRIGHT provided with tarball archive from sourceforge ...

All files contained in this distribution are covered by the following
copyright unless explicitly identified otherwise.

/*-
  * Copyright (c) 2002, 2003 Sam Leffler, Errno Consulting
  * All rights reserved.
  *
  * Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without
  * modification, are permitted provided that the following conditions
  * are met:
  * 1. Redistributions of source code must retain the above copyright
  *    notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer,
  *    without modification.
  * 2. Redistributions in binary form must reproduce at minimum a disclai=
mer
  *    similar to the "NO WARRANTY" disclaimer below ("Disclaimer") and a=
ny
  *    redistribution must be conditioned upon including a substantially
  *    similar Disclaimer requirement for further binary redistribution.
  * 3. Neither the names of the above-listed copyright holders nor the na=
mes
  *    of any contributors may be used to endorse or promote products der=
ived
  *    from this software without specific prior written permission.
  *
  * Alternatively, this software may be distributed under the terms of th=
e
  * GNU General Public License ("GPL") version 2 as published by the Free
  * Software Foundation.
  *
  * NO WARRANTY
  * THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY THE COPYRIGHT HOLDERS AND CONTRIBUTORS
  * ``AS IS'' AND ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT
  * LIMITED TO, THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF NONINFRINGEMENT, MERCHANTIBILIT=
Y
  * AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE ARE DISCLAIMED. IN NO EVENT SHAL=
L
  * THE COPYRIGHT HOLDERS OR CONTRIBUTORS BE LIABLE FOR SPECIAL, EXEMPLAR=
Y,
  * OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES (INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, PROCUREMENT =
OF
  * SUBSTITUTE GOODS OR SERVICES; LOSS OF USE, DATA, OR PROFITS; OR BUSIN=
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  * INTERRUPTION) HOWEVER CAUSED AND ON ANY THEORY OF LIABILITY, WHETHER
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  * THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGES.
  *
  * $Id: COPYRIGHT,v 1.3 2003/05/16 20:23:23 sam Exp $
  */

and here an extract of the README file ...

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 a 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.pd=
f

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".

...

Is it a problem to comply with FCC regulations ? Is GPL v2 enough ?

there is a full gpl driver but, at this time, it's only capable of lightn=
ing the leds !

Furthermore, this driver is hostAP Capable ... so very interesting for us=
e with :

Netgear WAG511 & WAB501,
D-Link DWL-AG520, DWL-AG650 & DWL-AB650,
Linksys WPC55AG, WMP55AG & WPC51AB

for the most spreaded ...

Regards

MaNU


Friedrich Lobenstock a =E9crit:

> Manu "MaNS" ESCAR wrote on 03.01.2004 07:35 MET:
>=20
>> .....Is there any pb with madwifi as they are using a
>> binary-only HAL modul supported by Atheros ? the project seems GPLed=20
>> anyway ... http://sourceforge.net/projects/madwifi/
>=20
>=20
> BUT please _do not_ include the binary drivers on the devil-cd.
> Rather make it download those files via wget from the internet
> as I would not want devil-lionux to get into a problems with those
> who own the rights of those binary-only modules.
>=20