From owner-freebsd-current@FreeBSD.ORG Thu Jan 25 18:02:18 2007 Return-Path: X-Original-To: current@freebsd.org Delivered-To: freebsd-current@FreeBSD.ORG Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [69.147.83.52]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id B86E116A4A9 for ; Thu, 25 Jan 2007 18:02:17 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from imp@bsdimp.com) Received: from harmony.bsdimp.com (vc4-2-0-87.dsl.netrack.net [199.45.160.85]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 6B5D313C45B for ; Thu, 25 Jan 2007 18:02:17 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from imp@bsdimp.com) Received: from localhost (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by harmony.bsdimp.com (8.13.4/8.13.4) with ESMTP id l0PHwbt4029844; Thu, 25 Jan 2007 10:58:38 -0700 (MST) (envelope-from imp@bsdimp.com) Date: Thu, 25 Jan 2007 10:59:08 -0700 (MST) Message-Id: <20070125.105908.1120073565.imp@bsdimp.com> To: sam@errno.com From: "M. Warner Losh" In-Reply-To: <45B79D53.5080503@errno.com> References: <45B74A72.9080108@fastmail.fm> <45B79D53.5080503@errno.com> X-Mailer: Mew version 4.2 on Emacs 21.3 / Mule 5.0 (SAKAKI) Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: Text/Plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Greylist: Sender IP whitelisted, not delayed by milter-greylist-2.0 (harmony.bsdimp.com [127.0.0.1]); Thu, 25 Jan 2007 10:58:39 -0700 (MST) Cc: kip.macy@gmail.com, pbowen@fastmail.fm, current@freebsd.org Subject: Re: WiFi driver companies X-BeenThere: freebsd-current@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: Discussions about the use of FreeBSD-current List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Thu, 25 Jan 2007 18:02:18 -0000 In message: <45B79D53.5080503@errno.com> Sam Leffler writes: : Kip Macy wrote: : > It has frequently been mentioned that Ralink is open. However, I have : > no vendor contact information so I cannot confirm that. For : > maintaining and extending the ralink drivers I rely on the linux : > driver put out by ralink as a reference. The atheros driver is : > extremely well supported, and for the foreseeable future will continue : > to be your best choice when using freebsd. To the best of my : > knowledege the only chipset which has publicly available documentation : > is the Prism II with Intersil firmware - which is supported by wi(4) : > (which I wish everyone would throwaway so I could stop throwing : > band-aid after band-aid at it and spend the time adding 11n support). : : FWIW the Prism docs were never public; they were just so widely : circulated under the table that it just seemed like that :) There was a time that one could get access to them fairly easily. You'd download an NDA that said "I won't give copies of this to anybody, but open source drivers are OK," sign it, fax it back and get an access code for the web site. While not, strictly speaking, public, there was a well beaten path for obtaining it. When Intersil sold off the Prism chips, this went away with the new owners, at least initially. I tried a few times after the sale to get updated docs to no avail and then gave up. Warner