Date: Wed, 27 Oct 2004 18:16:50 +0200 From: Christian Weisgerber <naddy@mips.inka.de> To: freebsd-current@freebsd.org, freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Subject: ACX100 Firmware Licensing Message-ID: <20041027161650.GA39008@kemoauc.mips.inka.de>
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Compared to other types of hardware, the support for wireless cards is lacking on *BSD because many vendors don't provide documentation or the cards require the upload of a binary firmware image that, absurdly as it sounds, may not be redistributed. Well, some people are working on improving this situation step by step and you can help by writing to the hardware vendors. Specifically, there already is a FreeBSD 5.x driver for the Texas Instruments ACX100 802.11b chipset (DLink DWL-520+, DWL-650+, and others), which is currently maintained externally: http://wlan.kewl.org/modules/mantis/main_page.php However, a firmware binary blob must be uploaded to the card, and since TI doesn't allow redistribution it can't be included with the driver, rendering it useless. THIS CONCERNS ALL OPEN SOURCE OPERATING SYSTEMS: FreeBSD, the other BSDs, Linux, you name it. OpenBSD's Ryan McBride has tried to contact TI about this but has been ignored and now asks the user community for assistance. Please contact the people at Texas Instruments by email or phone and ask them to enable us to provide a useful driver. Time and again it has been shown that vendors will be swayed if the user community expresses its interest vocally enough. Here is a list of contacts scrounged together from various sources: Bill Carney <bcarney@ti.com> +1 707 521 3069 Mr Taketo Fukui <fukui@ti.com> 81-3-4331-2060 Dr John T Coffey <coffey@ti.com> +1 707 284 2224 Mr Srikanth Gummadi <sgummadi@ti.com> +1 707 284 2209 Dr Srinath Hosur <hosur@ti.com> (214) 480-4432 Dr Jie Liang <jliang@iee.org> (214) 480-4105 Mr Joe Mueller <mueller@ti.com> 858 646 3358 Mr Lior Ophir <lior.ophir@ti.com> (972) 9 970-6542 Dr Stephen Pope <spp@ti.com> (510) 841-8315 Mr Yoram Solomon <yoram@ti.com> (408) 965-2196 Tim Riker <tim@ti.com> DuVal, Mary" <m-duval@ti.com> Anand Dabak <dabak@ti.com> "Anand G. Dabak" <dabak@hc.ti.com> Tim Schmidl <schmidl@ti.com> Sean Coffey <coffey@ti.com> Srikanth Gummadi <sgummadi@ti.com> Srinath Hosur <hosur@ti.com> Muhammad Ikram <mzi@ti.com> Joseph Mueller <mueller@ti.com> Lior Ophir <lior.ophir@ti.com> Stephen Pope <spp@ti.com> Ian Sherlock <isherlock@ti.com> Manoneet Singh <msingh@ti.com> Richar Williams <richard@ti.com> Hirohisa Yamaguchi <h-yamaguchi4@ti.com> ----- Forwarded message from Ryan McBride <mcbride@openbsd.org> ----- From: Ryan McBride <mcbride@openbsd.org> Subject: ACX100 Firmware Licensing Greetings Since I do not know which one of you to contact, I am contacting all of you in the hopes that someone can redirect me to the responsible party who can help me. I am contacting on behalf of the open source operating system called OpenBSD, but the message applies to all of the other open source operating systems (Linux, the other BSD's, etc). In open source operating systems the support for some 802.11 devices, drivers such as TIs ACX100 chip, is lagging because the vendors are taking rather restrictive approaches regarding their technology. We have begun working on a driver for this chip, but it will be crippled in our operating system due to the absence of a freely available firmware image. Our policy is as follows: We will include a firmware from a vendor if it is freely redistributable. It can be a binary blob of data. It must be copyrighted, of course, but that is in the interest of the vendor. Our user community is very compatibility driven in their purchasing decisions; they seek out the components that are stable and well supported, and it is not the ACX100 varients that they will select. Even if a free driver exists, they will avoid these cards since the firmware is not included in the operating system, so you are selling fewer cards than you could. I don't know if the open source operating systems are rising as much some of the press leads us to believe, but if they are, you can no longer afford to turn your back on a fickle and technically savvy community. In the past, vendors have gotten by because there were no options, but now that some have begun opening up with freely licensed firmware and usable technical documentation, open source users have a choice, and they will be chosing the best supported cards, ie those from vendors who cooperate with the open source projects. There is another threat to your business model of remaining closed. Some vendors like RealTek and Ralink have come out with fully documented chipsets. Even Intel's Centrino-associated chipsets are now fully documented, and Cisco's remain documented. And of course we fully support the old Lucent, Prism, and Symbol devices. Texas Instruments can avoid getting sidelined in the open source market, by working with us to release the firmware in a way we can use it. Other companies that have met with the same firmware choices? Qlogic ISP scsi/fiberchannel PCI cards 3com Ethernet cards that do IPSEC offloading Adaptec Intel 100mbit card firmware upgrades for bugs NCR for their scsi products There are about 20 other smaller companies on the list too. This is a copyright notice from a Qlogic SCSI card firmware: * Copyright (C) 1995, 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000 Qlogic, Inc. * All rights reserved. * * Redistribution and use in source and binary forms are permitted provided * that the following conditions are met: * 1. Redistribution of source code must retain the above copyright * notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer. * 2. Redistribution in binary form must reproduce the above copyright * notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer in the * documentation and/or other materials provided with the distribution. * 3. The name of the author may not be used to endorse or promote products * derived from this software without specific prior written permission * * THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY THE AUTHOR ``AS IS'' AND ANY EXPRESS OR * IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES * OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE ARE DISCLAIMED. * IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHOR BE LIABLE FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, * INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES (INCLUDING, BUT * NOT LIMITED TO, PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS OR SERVICES; LOSS OF USE, * DATA, OR PROFITS; OR BUSINESS INTERRUPTION) HOWEVER CAUSED AND ON ANY * THEORY OF LIABILITY, WHETHER IN CONTRACT, STRICT LIABILITY, OR TORT * (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE) ARISING IN ANY WAY OUT OF THE USE OF * THIS SOFTWARE, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGE. Four years ago the open source community told Qlogic that they had to make their firmware free, or the driver would be deleted from the various operating systems. They resisted us. The driver was deleted >from a couple of operating systems. A few days later they contacted us again to make the firmware free, and the driver was re-added. We told our users what was going on, and told them who to talk to. Five years ago, Adaptec was refusing to give us documentation for their scsi cards. We worked persistantly to build up communication with Adaptec and were shunned. So we gave a list of contacts (much like the cc: list you see above to our user community). Our users contacted 40 email addresses at Adaptec. A few days later Adaptec mailed us 2 of every cards they made, along with 2 copies of the manuals for every chipset they made. And we wrote support for all their devices, and they have sold thousands and thousands of cards as a result. After Qlogic and Adaptec started giving documentation to, all the other vendors stepped into line very quickly. The same thing happened with Ethernet chipsets after Taiwanese companies started making DEC Tulip semi-clones. The market for secrets fell apart, price and the customer rule now. We hope to see TI release a set of ACX100 firmware images with a copyright notice as shown above. We can talk about it. We know how to craft a copyright notice that will be in your interests, and also will be sufficient for the full range of Open Source project requirements. Otherwise vendors who have opened their firmware and/or documentation, are going to eat into your business, or seen another way, you will lose a business opportunity. In a few days I will be giving the list of contact information to our user community -- please consider them your customers, your potential customers, or your lost customers. If I am not convincing enough, perhaps they can be. -Ryan -- Ryan McBride, OpenBSD Project mcbride@openbsd.org ----- End forwarded message ----- -- Christian "naddy" Weisgerber naddy@mips.inka.de
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