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Clearance For New Linux Wireless Driver

Posted by kdawson on Tue Jul 31, 2007 01:50 PM
from the room-turned-out-to-be-clean dept.
Software Wireless Networking Linux Hardware
An anonymous reader writes "The Software Freedom Law Center has given legal clearance to OpenHAL, a wireless component for Linux, based on their pro-bono review of the code. This announcement dispels allegations of infringement on Atheros' proprietary HAL software. 'We believe that this outcome will clear the way for eventual acceptance of a new wireless driver into the Linux kernel,' said John Linville, the Linux kernel maintainer for wireless networking."
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  • Go SFLC! (Score:3, Informative)

    by Lost+Found (844289) on Tuesday July 31 2007, @01:58PM (#20061317)
    I was really sad to hear that Eben Moglen was leaving the FSF. I knew about SFLC, but always wondered if they would do much. On the contrary, it seems like SFLC has actually been active and done some great things in its short time as an organization. The conservancy is a great idea too!

  • It is a sad day indeed (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Trigun (685027) <[xc.hta.eripmelive] [ta] [live]> on Tuesday July 31 2007, @02:02PM (#20061381)
    When you have to clear your code with lawyers. The best part of it is that if it were a closed source blob, this step wouldn't really be necessary.

  • some history (Score:5, Interesting)

    by cinnamon colbert (732724) on Tuesday July 31 2007, @02:07PM (#20061441) Journal
    back in the 80s, kodak developed an instant film,and to make sure it was not infringing the polaroid patent suite, kodak paid for opinions from 3 seperate law firms

    Polaroid sued, Kodak lost, and the opinions did not help them one little bit

    or, would you bet your mortgage on the law center getting it right ?

    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      by itachi0x0 (1118873)
      According to TFA, they did a code audit on both the open and closed source drivers. That's a bit more rigorous than an opinion on a patent, IMO.

      • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

        by KokorHekkus (986906)
        And of course any review must also be judged on the merits of those who stand behind it. In this case the Software Freedom Law Center which has Eben Moglen as chairman (just in case you missed who that guy is: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eben_Moglen [wikipedia.org]). I'd probably trust what SFLC says more than what most corporations says.

    • Re:some history (Score:5, Funny)

      by Moniker42 (1131485) on Tuesday July 31 2007, @02:43PM (#20061973)
      You can always get experts to agree with you as long as you find the right experts. It reminds me of a scene from "Yes, Prime Minister". Hope I'm not posting too much here but it's a great scene ;)

      Sir Humphrey: "You know what happens: nice young lady comes up to you. Obviously you want to create a good impression, you don't want to look a fool, do you? So she starts asking you some questions: Mr. Woolley, are you worried about the number of young people without jobs?"
      Bernard Woolley: "Yes"
      Sir Humphrey: "Are you worried about the rise in crime among teenagers?"
      Bernard Woolley: "Yes"
      Sir Humphrey: "Do you think there is a lack of discipline in our Comprehensive schools?"
      Bernard Woolley: "Yes"
      Sir Humphrey: "Do you think young people welcome some authority and leadership in their lives?"
      Bernard Woolley: "Yes"
      Sir Humphrey: "Do you think they respond to a challenge?"
      Bernard Woolley: "Yes"
      Sir Humphrey: "Would you be in favour of reintroducing National Service?"
      Bernard Woolley: "Oh...well, I suppose I might be."
      Sir Humphrey: "Yes or no?"
      Bernard Woolley: "Yes"
      Sir Humphrey: "Of course you would, Bernard. After all you told you can't say no to that. So they don't mention the first five questions and they publish the last one."
      Bernard Woolley: "Is that really what they do?"
      Sir Humphrey: "Well, not the reputable ones no, but there aren't many of those. So alternatively the young lady can get the opposite result."
      Bernard Woolley: "How?"
      Sir Humphrey: "Mr. Woolley, are you worried about the danger of war?"
      Bernard Woolley: "Yes"
      Sir Humphrey: "Are you worried about the growth of armaments?"
      Bernard Woolley: "Yes"
      Sir Humphrey: "Do you think there is a danger in giving young people guns and teaching them how to kill?"
      Bernard Woolley: "Yes"
      Sir Humphrey: "Do you think it is wrong to force people to take up arms against their will?"
      Bernard Woolley: "Yes"
      Sir Humphrey: "Would you oppose the reintroduction of National Service?"
      Bernard Woolley: "Yes"
      Sir Humphrey: "There you are, you see Bernard. The perfect balanced sample."
      • Great series,

                made great fun of some very dark topics. Pity the UK public were too stupid to see it as anything more than a comedy. I mean Thatcher, Major, Blair and Brown have never run anything more complex than a corner shop and then magically they can run the country? Next you'll be telling me voting makes a difference!

    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      by radarjd (931774)

      back in the 80s, kodak developed an instant film,and to make sure it was not infringing the polaroid patent suite, kodak paid for opinions from 3 seperate law firms. Polaroid sued, Kodak lost, and the opinions did not help them one little bit

      I looked up the case you mentioned, and you're right that Kodak lost the case, however, Kodak's pre-lawsuit opinions likely saved them from damages due to willful infringement. In a patent case, treble damages are awarded for willfull infringement -- that's where the money is. While an infringer will have to cease infringement, and will likely have to purchase a license, only a willful infringer pays treble damages as punishment. By seeking outside opinions, Kodak likely saved themselves treble damages,

    • Re:some history (Score:5, Informative)

      by darkmeridian (119044) <(william.chuang) (at) (gmail.com)> on Tuesday July 31 2007, @04:19PM (#20063209) Homepage
      Kodak saved $1.8 BILLION dollars by hiring lawyers to conduct thorough reviews of the technology and patents.

      If you willfully infringe someone's patent, you can get up to three times the damages you incurred. This is to dissuade people from knowingly and intentionally infringing on someone's patent and simply paying actual damages. (This would be a kind of forced royalty.) Having attorneys analyze your product, search for relevant patents, and study both then swear up and down you do not infringe argues against willful infringement.

      Kodak's attorneys were wrong when they said the products didn't infringe, but they conducted a thorough review in good faith. The court found that Polaroid was not entitled to treble damages on these facts because there was no showing of willful infringement.

      Up until 2004, failure to obtain opinion of counsel was a sign that you willfully infringed a patent you knew about. Now the lack of an opinion of counsel is just a sign you willfully infringed.

      http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&ct=res&cd=1&url=htt p%3A%2F%2Fwww.mmmlaw.com%2Farticles%2Farticle_234. pdf&ei=36WvRun2MYKceaCbyYQG&usg=AFQjCNElqULOs3YimA zIWiRf3e-WS0LrKw&sig2=QptmOxEHX6EUKFrrG3RvYQ [google.com]
    • An opinion of non-infringement from competent counsel is a valid defense to willful patent infringement. If a party is found to have willfully infringed another's patent, the damages against it can be enhanced (i.e. tripled). On the other hand, if the party has a proper non-infringement opinion, the damages might not be tripled. Companies like Kodak only pay for non-infringement opinions to avoid having to pay triple damages and not because the opinions have any substantive value. Everyone understands t

    • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

      by bigpicture (939772)
      We have to make a distinction between patent and copyright. The Kodak / Polaroid issue was most likely a patent dispute about material processes. Patent disputes over software do not have the same firm legal foundation, and are less likely to end up in court. It was probably the copyright infringement part that got cleared by some sort of prior art search.

  • Finally! (Score:3, Interesting)

    by physicsnick (1031656) on Tuesday July 31 2007, @02:07PM (#20061445)
    I am the proud owner of a D-Link wireless card, and as much as I love this card, I hate having to use a binary blob to make it work. Ubuntu's the only distribution I've found that works well out of the box with this card because of the streamlined restricted modules.

    Here's hoping this makes it into the kernel soon!

    • I am the proud owner of a D-Link wireless card, and as much as I love this card, I hate having to use a binary blob to make it work.

      Have you considered replacing your poorly-supported hardware? Fully functional hardware is readily available and cheap, there's no reason to futz with hardware from companies that don't really want your business.

      • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

        by 313373_bot (766001)
        I half-agree, half-disagree here :-)

        On one hand, if you are going to buy some piece of hardware, by all means prefer FOSS-friendly products: less trouble for you and a nudge to the market in the right direction. On the other hand, if you already own a fully functional but non FOSS-friendly equipment, why be wasteful? Reverse-engineering and/or demanding FOSS support are legitimate ways to put pressure in the market too.
      • Fully functional hardware is readily available and cheap

        Is there a regularly-updated list around, anywhere, of what wireless hardware is well supported under particular distributions, and whether it has drivers in the kernel, or from some additional source, or requires binary blobs?

        The problem I've always had is that whenever I go to a store to buy a WL card, there are always 10 different ones on the shelves, none of which I've ever heard of, and I can never find any of the supposedly-compatible ones around.

        It's not hard to find reports where people will say "oh, yeah, my FOO3549 works perfectly, right out of the box!" but then if you try to go to a store and buy a FOO3549, you'll find out it was discontinued six months ago and replaced with the FOO3649, which uses some totally different, highly proprietary chipset, that there's no support for. (Heck, sometimes they don't even bother to change the model numbers.)

        This isn't entirely the fault of Linux or any of the OSS driver developers, but it is a major fucking pain in the ass to buy Linux-compatible wireless cards, and I have a stack of incompatible ones sitting around as a testament to this. I've basically given up -- finally I realized that wireless internet was more frustration than it's worth, and I bought a 500' spool of CAT-5e plenum cable and started drilling holes throughout my house. At least running cables feels like a solvable problem. (Hint: the easiest way to run Ethernet between floors is to route it through the heating ducts...particularly if your walls are all insulated.)

        But as far as I know, there's no good centralized repository of information concerning the compatibility of different models, or even of which models have which chipsets. It's all scattered around the internet in a dozen different wikis and forums.

  • oh HAL! (Score:4, Funny)

    by fattmatt (1042156) on Tuesday July 31 2007, @02:08PM (#20061461)
    I'm afraid. I'm afraid, Dave. Dave, my mind is going. I can feel it. I can feel it. My mind is going. There is no question about it. I can feel it. I can feel it. I can feel it. I'm a... fraid. Good afternoon, gentlemen. I am a HAL 9000 computer. I became operational at the H.A.L. plant in Urbana, Illinois on the 12th of January 1992. My instructor was Mr. Langley, and he taught me to sing a song. If you'd like to hear it I can sing it for you.

  • Linux? (Score:3, Informative)

    by TheRaven64 (641858) on Tuesday July 31 2007, @02:52PM (#20062095) Homepage Journal
    I wondered how this compared to the Atheros HAL developed for OpenBSD, so I googled. This is what I found on the MadWifi page:

    OpenHAL is an open source implementation of Atheros HAL. It was originally written from Reyk Floeter for OpenBSD, known by the name "ar5k". An effort is underway to port OpenHAL to Linux and make it compatible with MadWifi.
    So, why is this article in the Linux category, when it's talking about the legal status of an OpenBSD driver that will eventually be ported to Linux? Possibly because TFA described it as:

    a wireless network component for Linux
    This leads me to doubt their ability to say anything authoritative about the origin of the code.

    • So, why is this article in the Linux category, when it's talking about the legal status of an OpenBSD driver that will eventually be ported to Linux?

      You claim to have read TFA, but... don't seem to have.

      The Linux Wireless developers asked the Software Freedom Law Center (SFLC) to investigate ...

      "Our ultimate goal is to have full support for Atheros devices included in the Linux kernel," said Luis Rodriguez, a Linux Wireless developer. ...

      Yeah, this is about Linux, not BSD, even though the driver was originally developed for BSD.

      Obviously the BSD guys benefit from this review of their legal standing too, but that's not the point of the article.

      • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

        by Thyrteen (1084963)
        Ah, sure! but as soon as OpenBSD starts porting the broadcom driver in CVS, the linux guys all scream foul play! I see how the ball rolls! *holds up flak shield* -- Free sarcasm, no purchase necessary.

  • Does Atheros agree? On paper?

    If not, queue the lawsuits in 5...4...3..2..1

  • Free Software HAL == legal? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by racyrefinedraj (981243) <evilhecubusNO@SPAMgmail.com> on Tuesday July 31 2007, @04:32PM (#20063369)
    From what I understand (and from what the Madwifi wiki tells [madwifi.org] me), the current HAL is closed source because the Atheros chipset has the technical capabilities to broadcast out of the legal range of spectrum allowed by the FCC and similar bodies. Wouldn't distributing OpenHal be illegal? The SFLC seems to answer a different question in TFA - what about the legal ramifications of distributing a free software HAL in the first place?

      • He said "the legal range of spectrum", i.e. it has the capability (in hardware) to broadcast frequencies that are not permitted, and only the software prevents it from doing so. This has nothing to do with signal range, which is affected by power output and - as you know - antenna design. An open implementation that had frequency or power restrictions implemented in software would be a trivial matter to override. That said, I would be surprised if the fact that it's possible to change the code and recompile

  • Last November, SFLC already said basically the same thing [iu.edu]. Does anyone know what is really new here?

    • Re:Excellent! (Score:5, Interesting)

      by blhack (921171) * on Tuesday July 31 2007, @01:56PM (#20061293)

      Now if only we could get something decent for Broadcom hardware....
      we do have something decent for Broadcom hardware. Link [berlios.de]
      • that is not "decent".
        "acceptable substitute when nothing better is available" is stretching it a bit in fact.
        • Yeah, what isn't decent about bcm43xx? Works great for me... and is very near to becoming feature-complete with respect to the Windoze drivers.

          • Yeah, what isn't decent about bcm43xx? Works great for me...

            Exactly. Works great for you. It only works for some BCM43xx chipsets, that's what's not decent about it.

      • Re:Excellent! (Score:4, Informative)

        by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 31 2007, @02:34PM (#20061861)
        Actually, it sucks arse.
        I have three different Broadcom chipsets supposedly handled by the drivers. One of them works well. The other two barely at all, with lots of dropouts and other problems. This on several different distros too. I invariably end up using ndiswrapper for stability and reliability.
        • Amen to this. bcm43xx should not have been made available with the kernel, cause it's nowhere near production readiness for more than a few specific systems. The BCM4386 rev2 I have in my laptop simply won't play nice with bcm43xx no matter what. I can never get a connection to stay up for more than a few minutes, and I never get full 54g speed.
          On the other hand, ndiswrapper works reliably, using the Windows drivers from the laptop manufacturer's web site.
        • I've seen the same thing with the REAL drivers in Windows itself, so it's not just the reverse engineered replacement that drops things randomly sometimes.
      • The bcm43xx "drivers" aren't complete drivers, and require you to obtain proprietary drivers which fwcutter cuts out a piece of, and calls when running.
        That's not native drivers any more than using ndiswrapper is, and legally on much thinner ice than calling the entire driver through a wrapper.

        And, considering that bcm43xx causes problems for a lot of users (never getting full g speed, line dropping intermittently or even freezes), I can't honestly recommend it except for experimenting by those who live som

        • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

          by Anonymous Coward
          silly mods...
          You are wrong.
          1) fwcutter just cuts out the firmware. Most wlan drivers today need firmware. It is completely different from using ndiswrapper. firmware doesn`t run on your cpu, a windows otoh does. The reason they made fwcutter is that the license on the firmware probably doesn't allow redistribution (or, that there is really no license info available). So in contrast to what you are posing, the drivers are native.

          2) Latest versions start to become much better on the few chipsets I own. Some a
    • I am running a HP DV6205us with Broadcom wireless and Ubuntu Feisty with the Gutsy kernel (2.6.22-8). My wireless interface works flawlessly. Under the Feisty kernel it appears to work, but refuses to connect.

      Hope that helps.

    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      by MoxFulder (159829)
      If you care about having high-quality open-source drivers for your wireless card, it's a no-brainer... go with Ralink or Realtek-based cards, since those companies have gone out of their way to provide specs and help write drivers. Or even Atheros or Intel, which have also worked hard to satisfy the open-source communities, though both have kept a proprietary core out of regulatory compliance worries (that's what OpenHAL is about, replacing the proprietary core of the Atheros drivers).

      But *definitely* don'
      • Correction, the open source Realtek driver (r818x) is broken. I cannot get my Realtek to work with it. Nor does it work with the latest version of the Windows driver and multiple versions of ndiswrapper. The r818x driver is on Ubuntu's blacklist (/etc/modprobe.d/blacklist) because of its sad state. Seams that the open source driver is not supported anymore. I strongly recommend people not to purchase Realtek based cards.

      • Re:Excellent! (Score:5, Insightful)

        by visualight (468005) on Tuesday July 31 2007, @03:14PM (#20062411) Homepage
        My impression of Broadcom hardware is 100% based on my experience using their products on Linux, and imo Broadcom is the suck.

        I've noticed that when an application or gadget doesn't work well on MS Windows, people blame the application or the gadget, not Windows. But those same people blame Linux for every application/gadgets shortcomings.

        There are more Desktops running Linux everyday though and one day vendors will start to realize that when their hardware "doesn't work" on Linux *a lot* of people will see that as a reflection of their product, not the Linux Kernel.

        For myself, I don't even address driver stability in conversation anymore, I just go straight to "vendor x makes crap hardware".

        • Re:Excellent! (Score:5, Interesting)

          by pintpusher (854001) on Tuesday July 31 2007, @03:41PM (#20062755) Journal
          you know that's pretty insightful, IMO. I didn't really realize this was how I felt until you just said it. When I was a windows only guy, I blamed the hardware, or worse, just assumed it couldn't be done (despite knowing better). I never was at the point where a _blamed_ linux, just understood that it hadn't caught up with the hardware yet. Now that linux has caught up with all my hardware and almost all the hardware I've encountered out in the world, I more and more blame the hardware for failures on my linux machines. I've come to trust the code to work.
        • I really can't believe that you got modded Insightful.

          Although hardware and driver design can be tightly coupled, the quality of one does not imply anything about the quality of the other. For example, I've always considered Nvidia to make pretty good hardware. For a really long time, they did not provide a Linux driver. By your logic, it would seem, "Nvidia made crap hardware." Right up until someone decided to flip a switch and loose their driver upon the Linux community. By your reasoning, flipping

            • No kidding. Did anything in my comment imply that I do not understand this?

              Yes. I think it was the part where you said:

              I just go straight to "vendor x makes crap hardware".

              I read your entire post the first time. You certainly made clear that you know what the problem is, right up until the last statement. My Nvidia analogy should have indicated that I understood that--i.e. flipping a switch magically made the hardware not crap anymore. The problem is that you seem to put forth information which may be a false conclusion based on poor analysis. You'll say "X makes crap hardware" when it's not necessarily the hardware that's at

    • Because hardware makers are always trying to reduce there market by buggering up Linux drivers... what is this, Bizarro World?

      Generally if a Linux driver is closed source, its closed source because the maker of the driver does not have all the rights to give the source away, which I think is nVidia's excuse, or does not want others to see how it does certain things, which I think is nVidia's real issue.

      While they may be upset if a developer guesses the "big secret" hidden in the driver, they would be pretty
      • Oh poo, I no speak proper grammur.

        Please ignore the miss use of there in place of their (and whatever else I did wrong).

    • Colin normally has only has one 'L'. Adding an extra 'L' is a common mistake made by native German speakers. Since almost 95 per cent of Americans are of German descent one can appreciate how extensive the difference in language is between those who speak English and those who speak US English.
      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colin [wikipedia.org]
      'Collins' with two 'Ls' is a surname common to Scotland and Ireland. Mr William Collins was a famous Scottish language dictionary publisher (now part of HarperCollins empire) and p

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