From owner-freebsd-current@FreeBSD.ORG Sat Oct 11 17:02:07 2008 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-current@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [IPv6:2001:4f8:fff6::34]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 8907D1065686 for ; Sat, 11 Oct 2008 17:02:07 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from sam@freebsd.org) Received: from ebb.errno.com (ebb.errno.com [69.12.149.25]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 654C38FC1C for ; Sat, 11 Oct 2008 17:02:07 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from sam@freebsd.org) Received: from trouble.errno.com (trouble.errno.com [10.0.0.248]) (authenticated bits=0) by ebb.errno.com (8.13.6/8.12.6) with ESMTP id m9BH26rH009201 (version=TLSv1/SSLv3 cipher=DHE-RSA-AES256-SHA bits=256 verify=NO); Sat, 11 Oct 2008 10:02:06 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from sam@freebsd.org) Message-ID: <48F0DC0E.4010301@freebsd.org> Date: Sat, 11 Oct 2008 10:02:06 -0700 From: Sam Leffler Organization: FreeBSD Project User-Agent: Thunderbird 2.0.0.9 (X11/20071125) MIME-Version: 1.0 To: Alex Keda References: <48F0CEA3.4080601@lissyara.su> In-Reply-To: <48F0CEA3.4080601@lissyara.su> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-DCC-Rhyolite-Metrics: ebb.errno.com; whitelist Cc: FreeBSD Current Subject: Re: HAL source code vs binary code 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: Sat, 11 Oct 2008 17:02:07 -0000 Alex Keda wrote: > http://lkml.org/lkml/2008/9/26/321 > whether there are plans to include source code HAL in FreeBSD? > It is very difficult to update 2 MB binary files .. If someone wants to do the work I would happily turn over responsibility for ath. Beware however that the code Atheros gave out, while derived from my code base (note my name is on the files), has very different api's (sometimes subtle), lacks important functionality present in my hal, and is missing support for 5210, 5211, and 5416 class parts. Furthermore they didn't even give out the driver that goes with it and the code is incomplete (I know as have access to the code base this stuff came from). I will however say that releasing this code will enable me to start pushing certain useful tools into our code base (e.g. the register dumping tool I've used forever). The disclosure now also enables to me to point out how to do certain things like disable CCA on certain chips (ar5212/ar5212reg.h): #define AR_DIAG_SW 0x8048 /* MAC PCU control register */ #define DIAG_FORCE_RXCLR (1<<20) /* force rxclear (ignore CCA) */ The obvious right thing would have been to allow me to give out my code but that assumes Atheros really wanted to help the open source community. Sam