Date: Thu, 5 Oct 2006 12:34:17 -0400 From: "Constantine A. Murenin" <mureninc@gmail.com> To: "John Baldwin" <jhb@freebsd.org> Cc: freebsd-hardware@freebsd.org Subject: Re: ipw(4) and iwi(4): Intel's Pro Wireless firmware licensing problems Message-ID: <f34ca13c0610050934n35191e52p2b856224fcee9a12@mail.gmail.com> In-Reply-To: <200610050852.58943.jhb@freebsd.org> References: <f34ca13c0610041946h7dfaa05cyf3296798b215405e@mail.gmail.com> <200610050852.58943.jhb@freebsd.org>
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On 05/10/06, John Baldwin <jhb@freebsd.org> wrote: > On Wednesday 04 October 2006 22:46, Constantine A. Murenin wrote: > > Hi, > > > > My acquaintance with Unix started with FreeBSD, which I used for quite > > a while before discovering OpenBSD. I now mostly use OpenBSD, and I > > was wondering of how many FreeBSD users are aware about the licensing > > restrictions of Intel Pro Wireless family of wireless adapters? > > > > Why are none of the manual pages of FreeBSD say anything about why > > Intel Wireless devices do not work by default? > > > > http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?query=ipw > > http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?query=iwi > > > > If you are curious as to why things are the way they are, I suggest > > that you check the problems that are described in the misc@openbsd.org > > mailing list, and contact Intel people and say what you think about > > their user-unfriendly policy in regards to Intel Pro Wireless > > firmwares, which are REQUIRED to be loaded from the OS before the > > device functions, i.e. the OS developers must be allowed to freely > > distribute the firmware in order for the devices to work > > out-of-the-box. > > > > For some recent information about Intel being an Open Source Fraud, > > see http://marc.theaimsgroup.com/?l=openbsd-misc&m=115960734026283&w=2. > > Probably because all you have to do is install a port and it works. :) Oh yeah, so I can install a port to the installation media, so that I could setup wireless right away and install all ports that are not present on the install CD off an ftp or http mirror? :) > In FreeBSD installing a port isn't too difficult for users to do. However, So is in OpenBSD, in fact, they've recently made it even easier with a "-u" option, where "pkg_add -u" automatically updates all packages to the newest versions, works out of the box, only PKG_PATH needs to be set. > you might want to ask Theo why he complains about Intel not giving him a > license for one binary blob (Intel wireless firmware) but complains about > Atheros providing a binary blob that he can distribute. Seems a bit of a > contradiction to me. However, you probably won't make any headway with > that argument because the other side won't be using reason and logic. Are you being serious? The distinction is rather clear -- Intel's firmware is processor and operating system independent and runs on the wireless microprocessor, whereas Atheros' HAL module is processor-dependent, and runs on the main CPU in kernel mode with unlimited priviledges (correct me if I'm wrong). Clear distinction here, IMHO. > I think in practice that the distinction between a HAL and firmware is > blurry at best. Both are pre-built software to drive hardware and provide > a simplified interface to software (i.e. OS) for managing the hardware. > The only difference is which portion of RAM that it lives (some RAM chip > on the device or in the RAM of the host computer) and that distinction > really isn't all that noteworthy. If it's some argument about HAL's > encroaching on space needed by the OS, note that firmware has to be in > host RAM as well so it can be uploaded. In fact, for iwi(4) and ipw(4) > the drivers keep it around all the time to handle suspend/resume. The > implementation detail of HAL vs firmware is really just a reflection of > design choices made by the hardware vendor in where to draw the line > between actual hardware vs software to provide their public interface to > system software. I think there is a huge difference here in what area of the RAM of the host computer these binary blobs live: in the case of firmware, they live in a non-executable read-only part of RAM, whereas with a binary HAL module the situation is just the opposite. And this IS the difference that should concern security-paranoid people. Cheers, Constantine.
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