Building two (external) modules from the same sources

Building two (external) modules from the same sources

[Andrey Borzenkov]

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I have here driver that can be built for two different types of
hardware from basically the same sources (this is port of old Agere
drivers for Hermes-I/Hermes-II chipsets). Build differs only in one
define -DHERMES2 and single file with different firmware. Unfortunately
"if HII" are spread over sources which makes splitting of sources rather
questionable.

What is the best way (from kbuild POV) to build two modules - for H-I
and H-II - from the same set of source files?

TIA

-andrey

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Re: Building two (external) modules from the same sources

[Greg KH]

On Mon, Sep 29, 2008 at 09:49:34AM +0400, Andrey Borzenkov wrote:
> I have here driver that can be built for two different types of
> hardware from basically the same sources (this is port of old Agere
> drivers for Hermes-I/Hermes-II chipsets).

Cool, do you have a link to the code, I'd be glad to add it to
drivers/staging/ if it's not in a fully-mergable state yet to get wider
users for it.

> Build differs only in one define -DHERMES2 and single file with
> different firmware. Unfortunately "if HII" are spread over sources
> which makes splitting of sources rather questionable.
> 
> What is the best way (from kbuild POV) to build two modules - for H-I
> and H-II - from the same set of source files?

Not to create two different modules, but rather have one module that
works for both pieces of hardware, with dynamic checks for the different
portions.

thanks,

greg k-h

Re: Building two (external) modules from the same sources

[Andrey Borzenkov]

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On Wednesday 01 October 2008, Greg KH wrote:
> On Mon, Sep 29, 2008 at 09:49:34AM +0400, Andrey Borzenkov wrote:
> > I have here driver that can be built for two different types of
> > hardware from basically the same sources (this is port of old Agere
> > drivers for Hermes-I/Hermes-II chipsets).
> 
> Cool, do you have a link to the code, I'd be glad to add it to
> drivers/staging/ if it's not in a fully-mergable state yet to get wider
> users for it.
> 

You can look at it here: http://arvidjaar.newmail.ru/wlags49.tar.bz

I doubt that it is suitable for inclusion at current state if ever.
This is taken directly from Agere 2.4 sources; the only parts that were
touched are kernel glue and wireless extensions interface.

And it is not GPL'ed, of course. I attach E-Mail I received a while
back with answere from Agere legal department.

I know that (rather unexpectedly) driver got some acceptance and I was
approached several times by different people; I Cc to them.

> > Build differs only in one define -DHERMES2 and single file with
> > different firmware. Unfortunately "if HII" are spread over sources
> > which makes splitting of sources rather questionable.
> > 
> > What is the best way (from kbuild POV) to build two modules - for H-I
> > and H-II - from the same set of source files?
> 
> Not to create two different modules, but rather have one module that
> works for both pieces of hardware, with dynamic checks for the different
> portions.
> 

I can't; one of the reasons being - I have no idea how to do it. Original
sources build separate modules for every flavour of driver. It is just that
I was recently asked about this driver on Zaurus (which happens to use
Hermes-II); so I had to do something about it.

If someone could offer (link to) hermes-1/2 programming manual ...

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From: TJ <tj@tjworld.net>
To: Andrey Borzenkov <arvidjaar@mail.ru>
Subject: Re: wlags49_h1_cs - 2.6.x - Agere Hermes I driver
Date: Mon, 05 Feb 2007 19:28:59 +0000
Message-ID: <1170703739.10363.9.camel@butch.lan.tjworld.net>

Hi Andrey,

I've got some good news for you/us/the world of Hermes :)

I got a reply from the legal representative at Agere confirming that
their source-code is BSD licensed, and I've included the contents of the
email here.

I hope this re-assures you so that your excellent work on the drivers
can be made widely available for other hackers to work with.

Regards,

TJ.

---------
On Mon, 2007-02-05 at 13:54 -0500, Pathare, Viren M (Viren) wrote:


"I would like to confirm that the two drivers; Linux LKM Wireless Driver
Source Code, Version 7.18 and Linux LKM Wireless Driver Source Code,
Version 7.22 comply with Open Source BSD License. Therefore the source
code can be distributed in unmodified or modified form consistent with
the terms of the license.

The Linux driver architecture was based on two modules, the MSF (Module
specific functions) and the HCF (Hardware Control Functions).  Included
in the HCF is run-time firmware (binary format) which is downloaded into
the RAM of the Hermes 1/2/2.5 WMAC.

This hex coded firmware is not based on any open source software and
hence it is not subject to any Open Source License.  The firmware was
developed by Agere and runs on the DISC processor embedded within the
Hermes 1/2/2.5 Wireless MAC devices. 

Hope this helps.

Sincerely,

Viren Pathare
Intellectual Property Licensing Manager
Agere"



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Re: Agere Hermes source-code: copyright situation

[Greg KH]

On Wed, Oct 01, 2008 at 05:40:29PM +0100, TJ wrote:
> On Wed, 2008-10-01 at 14:13 +0400, Andrey Borzenkov wrote:
> > And it is not GPL'ed, of course. I attach E-Mail I received a while
> > back with answere from Agere legal department.
> 
> I'm attaching the original email I sent to Agere and their response for
> the record, hoping it helps clarify the legal position.

Very nice, thanks for forwarding this on.

As the license is BSD, that means we can place it in the kernel tree.
Do you all mind if I add it to the drivers/staging/ directory so you can
work on cleaning it up within the main kernel tree infrastructure?

thanks,

greg k-h

Re: Building two (external) modules from the same sources

[Greg KH]

On Wed, Oct 01, 2008 at 02:13:10PM +0400, Andrey Borzenkov wrote:
> On Wednesday 01 October 2008, Greg KH wrote:
> > On Mon, Sep 29, 2008 at 09:49:34AM +0400, Andrey Borzenkov wrote:
> > > I have here driver that can be built for two different types of
> > > hardware from basically the same sources (this is port of old Agere
> > > drivers for Hermes-I/Hermes-II chipsets).
> > 
> > Cool, do you have a link to the code, I'd be glad to add it to
> > drivers/staging/ if it's not in a fully-mergable state yet to get wider
> > users for it.
> > 
> 
> You can look at it here: http://arvidjaar.newmail.ru/wlags49.tar.bz
> 
> I doubt that it is suitable for inclusion at current state if ever.
> This is taken directly from Agere 2.4 sources; the only parts that were
> touched are kernel glue and wireless extensions interface.

It is acceptable for inclusion in drivers/staging/ where we can work on
cleaning it up from within the kernel environment, and provide access to
users who are wanting to use these drivers now.

Is it ok if I add it there?  I'll take the above tarball and make up the
proper patch and get it to build.

> And it is not GPL'ed, of course. I attach E-Mail I received a while
> back with answere from Agere legal department.

It's BSD, which is fine, that works with the GPLv2 license of the rest
of the kernel.

> > > Build differs only in one define -DHERMES2 and single file with
> > > different firmware. Unfortunately "if HII" are spread over sources
> > > which makes splitting of sources rather questionable.
> > > 
> > > What is the best way (from kbuild POV) to build two modules - for H-I
> > > and H-II - from the same set of source files?
> > 
> > Not to create two different modules, but rather have one module that
> > works for both pieces of hardware, with dynamic checks for the different
> > portions.
> > 
> 
> I can't; one of the reasons being - I have no idea how to do it. Original
> sources build separate modules for every flavour of driver. It is just that
> I was recently asked about this driver on Zaurus (which happens to use
> Hermes-II); so I had to do something about it.

Hm, I'll look at the code and see if I see anything obvious.

> If someone could offer (link to) hermes-1/2 programming manual ...

That would probably help out a lot :)

thanks,

greg k-h

Re: Building two (external) modules from the same sources

[TJ]

On Wed, 2008-10-01 at 13:05 -0700, Greg KH wrote:
> Hm, I'll look at the code and see if I see anything obvious.
> 
> > If someone could offer (link to) hermes-1/2 programming manual ...
> 
> That would probably help out a lot :)

Unfortunately the changes in the corporate history have always confused
the issue of locating the old documentation.

As I understand it, the chipset(s) were originally developed at Lucent
around 1999-ish. In 2000 the division responsible became a subsidiary
called Agere Systems. In 2002 it was spun-off as a separate business. In
April 2007 it was bought by LSI Corporation, and by the end of 2007 had
lost its separate existence, along with its web-site and the developer
resources it provided.

The Wayback Machine has working links to the product data-sheets and the
original driver packages:

http://web.archive.org/web/20031202185415/www.agere.com/client/wlan.html
http://web.archive.org/web/20060330013615/http://www.agere.com/mobility/wireless_lan_drivers.html

There is another source of confusion - the actual chip-sets used.

Under the name WaveLAN/IEEE there was a pre-802.11b chip-set, as well as
the later WaveLAN Hermes I (1/one) and II (2/two) which are 802.11b
compatible.

The orinoco_cs drivers support the Hermes I chip-set, at least for WEP,
but as I recall, not for WPA/WPA2.

With Andrey's modifications the wlags49 driver supports WPA but not WPA2
- at least not in my tests.

The only technical documentation I can find, and I'm not sure it will be
completely applicable to the 802.11b Hermes chip-sets, is the 1999
Lucent Technologies/Bell Labs Innovations document:

"DRAFT Software Interface Specification for Wireless Connection
Interface for WaveLAN/IEEE (HCF-light)"

which is available (for now) from a Berkeley graduate student's site:

http://bwrc.eecs.berkeley.edu/People/Grad_Students/jbeutel/wavelan_s0005-11-light.htm

The HCF information might be pretty close to what is used in the HCF by
the Hermes wlags49 MSF.

TJ.

P.S. Andrey: Your mail-provider (mail.ru) is blocking my emails to you.

Re: Agere Hermes source-code: copyright situation

[Dave]

Greg KH wrote:
> On Wed, Oct 01, 2008 at 05:40:29PM +0100, TJ wrote:
>> On Wed, 2008-10-01 at 14:13 +0400, Andrey Borzenkov wrote:
>>>On Wednesday 01 October 2008, Greg KH wrote:
>>>> On Mon, Sep 29, 2008 at 09:49:34AM +0400, Andrey Borzenkov wrote:
>>>>> I have here driver that can be built for two different types of
>>>>> hardware from basically the same sources (this is port of old Agere
>>>>> drivers for Hermes-I/Hermes-II chipsets).
>>>> 
>>>> Cool, do you have a link to the code, I'd be glad to add it to
>>>> drivers/staging/ if it's not in a fully-mergable state yet to get wider
>>>> users for it.
>>>
>>> You can look at it here: http://arvidjaar.newmail.ru/wlags49.tar.bz
>>>
>>> I doubt that it is suitable for inclusion at current state if ever.
>>> This is taken directly from Agere 2.4 sources; the only parts that were
>>> touched are kernel glue and wireless extensions interface.
>>>
>>> And it is not GPL'ed, of course. I attach E-Mail I received a while
>>> back with answere from Agere legal department.
>>
>> I'm attaching the original email I sent to Agere and their response for
>> the record, hoping it helps clarify the legal position.
> 
> Very nice, thanks for forwarding this on.
> 
> As the license is BSD, that means we can place it in the kernel tree.
> Do you all mind if I add it to the drivers/staging/ directory so you can
> work on cleaning it up within the main kernel tree infrastructure?

(cc'ing linux-wireless)

FYI, Hermes I hardware is already covered by the orinoco driver. WPA and firmware download functionality (which is supported by the Agere driver, but not orinoco in 2.6.27) is already in the wireless queue for 2.6.28.

This leaves Hermes-II (and USB?) hardware which orinoco does not support, but could if someone had access to a card for development.


Regards,

Dave.

Re: Agere Hermes source-code: copyright situation

[Andrey Borzenkov]

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TJ you can answer me using arvidjaar (at) newmail dot ru. Hopefully
one of them works. Re WPA2 - there is no information how to setup
CCMP/AES (even if firmware supports it); so no WPA2.

On Thursday 02 October 2008, Dave wrote:
> Greg KH wrote:
> > On Wed, Oct 01, 2008 at 05:40:29PM +0100, TJ wrote:
> >> On Wed, 2008-10-01 at 14:13 +0400, Andrey Borzenkov wrote:
> >>>On Wednesday 01 October 2008, Greg KH wrote:
> >>>> On Mon, Sep 29, 2008 at 09:49:34AM +0400, Andrey Borzenkov wrote:
> >>>>> I have here driver that can be built for two different types of
> >>>>> hardware from basically the same sources (this is port of old Agere
> >>>>> drivers for Hermes-I/Hermes-II chipsets).
> >>>> 
> >>>> Cool, do you have a link to the code, I'd be glad to add it to
> >>>> drivers/staging/ if it's not in a fully-mergable state yet to get wider
> >>>> users for it.
> >>>
> >>> You can look at it here: http://arvidjaar.newmail.ru/wlags49.tar.bz
> >>>
> >>> I doubt that it is suitable for inclusion at current state if ever.
> >>> This is taken directly from Agere 2.4 sources; the only parts that were
> >>> touched are kernel glue and wireless extensions interface.
> >>>
> >>> And it is not GPL'ed, of course. I attach E-Mail I received a while
> >>> back with answere from Agere legal department.
> >>
> >> I'm attaching the original email I sent to Agere and their response for
> >> the record, hoping it helps clarify the legal position.
> > 
> > Very nice, thanks for forwarding this on.
> > 
> > As the license is BSD, that means we can place it in the kernel tree.
> > Do you all mind if I add it to the drivers/staging/ directory so you can
> > work on cleaning it up within the main kernel tree infrastructure?
>

I do not mind but it is likely makes no sense for H-I now; and
I do not own H-II myself so cannot work on it. If we are focusing on
H-2/2.5, it would make more sense to make similar modifications to
7.22 driver set from Agere to avoid overlap with Orinoco.
 
> (cc'ing linux-wireless)
>
> FYI, Hermes I hardware is already covered by the orinoco driver. WPA and firmware download functionality (which is supported by the Agere driver, but not orinoco in 2.6.27) is already in the wireless queue for 2.6.28.
> 

Yes, I discovered this yesterday as well. Thank you!

How are you going to distribute firmware? You will need 9.x firmware from
original Agere driver; do I understand it correctly that it will come
with orinoco in binary form?

> This leaves Hermes-II (and USB?) hardware which orinoco does not support, but could if someone had access to a card for development.
> 

As I initially wrote driver for internal consumption my mods supports
PCMCIA only.

Unfortunately I do not own Hermes-II device myself. I was asked recently
by Alexander who is owing such device and modification of Agere sources was
pretty trivial. I Cc to him; Aexander are you interested in aiding of
H-II driver development for mainstream?

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Re: Agere Hermes source-code: copyright situation

[Dave]

Andrey Borzenkov wrote:
>> FYI, Hermes I hardware is already covered by the orinoco driver. WPA and firmware download functionality (which is supported by the Agere driver, but not orinoco in 2.6.27) is already in the wireless queue for 2.6.28.
>>
> 
> Yes, I discovered this yesterday as well. Thank you!
> 
> How are you going to distribute firmware? You will need 9.x firmware from
> original Agere driver; do I understand it correctly that it will come
> with orinoco in binary form?

I was hoping we could get it into David Woodhouses firmware tree. However I haven't had a response to my original message. I'll try again with a patch.


Dave.

Re: Agere Hermes source-code: copyright situation

[Greg KH]

On Thu, Oct 02, 2008 at 06:37:18AM +0400, Andrey Borzenkov wrote:
> TJ you can answer me using arvidjaar (at) newmail dot ru. Hopefully
> one of them works. Re WPA2 - there is no information how to setup
> CCMP/AES (even if firmware supports it); so no WPA2.
> 
> On Thursday 02 October 2008, Dave wrote:
> > Greg KH wrote:
> > > On Wed, Oct 01, 2008 at 05:40:29PM +0100, TJ wrote:
> > >> On Wed, 2008-10-01 at 14:13 +0400, Andrey Borzenkov wrote:
> > >>>On Wednesday 01 October 2008, Greg KH wrote:
> > >>>> On Mon, Sep 29, 2008 at 09:49:34AM +0400, Andrey Borzenkov wrote:
> > >>>>> I have here driver that can be built for two different types of
> > >>>>> hardware from basically the same sources (this is port of old Agere
> > >>>>> drivers for Hermes-I/Hermes-II chipsets).
> > >>>> 
> > >>>> Cool, do you have a link to the code, I'd be glad to add it to
> > >>>> drivers/staging/ if it's not in a fully-mergable state yet to get wider
> > >>>> users for it.
> > >>>
> > >>> You can look at it here: http://arvidjaar.newmail.ru/wlags49.tar.bz
> > >>>
> > >>> I doubt that it is suitable for inclusion at current state if ever.
> > >>> This is taken directly from Agere 2.4 sources; the only parts that were
> > >>> touched are kernel glue and wireless extensions interface.
> > >>>
> > >>> And it is not GPL'ed, of course. I attach E-Mail I received a while
> > >>> back with answere from Agere legal department.
> > >>
> > >> I'm attaching the original email I sent to Agere and their response for
> > >> the record, hoping it helps clarify the legal position.
> > > 
> > > Very nice, thanks for forwarding this on.
> > > 
> > > As the license is BSD, that means we can place it in the kernel tree.
> > > Do you all mind if I add it to the drivers/staging/ directory so you can
> > > work on cleaning it up within the main kernel tree infrastructure?
> >
> 
> I do not mind but it is likely makes no sense for H-I now; and
> I do not own H-II myself so cannot work on it. If we are focusing on
> H-2/2.5, it would make more sense to make similar modifications to
> 7.22 driver set from Agere to avoid overlap with Orinoco.

Ok, let me know what you think is the best thing to do, and I'll be glad
to help you out with it.

thanks,

greg k-h

Re: Agere Hermes source-code: copyright situation

[Dan Williams]

On Thu, 2008-10-02 at 13:00 -0700, Greg KH wrote:
> On Thu, Oct 02, 2008 at 06:37:18AM +0400, Andrey Borzenkov wrote:
> > TJ you can answer me using arvidjaar (at) newmail dot ru. Hopefully
> > one of them works. Re WPA2 - there is no information how to setup
> > CCMP/AES (even if firmware supports it); so no WPA2.
> > 
> > On Thursday 02 October 2008, Dave wrote:
> > > Greg KH wrote:
> > > > On Wed, Oct 01, 2008 at 05:40:29PM +0100, TJ wrote:
> > > >> On Wed, 2008-10-01 at 14:13 +0400, Andrey Borzenkov wrote:
> > > >>>On Wednesday 01 October 2008, Greg KH wrote:
> > > >>>> On Mon, Sep 29, 2008 at 09:49:34AM +0400, Andrey Borzenkov wrote:
> > > >>>>> I have here driver that can be built for two different types of
> > > >>>>> hardware from basically the same sources (this is port of old Agere
> > > >>>>> drivers for Hermes-I/Hermes-II chipsets).
> > > >>>> 
> > > >>>> Cool, do you have a link to the code, I'd be glad to add it to
> > > >>>> drivers/staging/ if it's not in a fully-mergable state yet to get wider
> > > >>>> users for it.
> > > >>>
> > > >>> You can look at it here: http://arvidjaar.newmail.ru/wlags49.tar.bz
> > > >>>
> > > >>> I doubt that it is suitable for inclusion at current state if ever.
> > > >>> This is taken directly from Agere 2.4 sources; the only parts that were
> > > >>> touched are kernel glue and wireless extensions interface.
> > > >>>
> > > >>> And it is not GPL'ed, of course. I attach E-Mail I received a while
> > > >>> back with answere from Agere legal department.
> > > >>
> > > >> I'm attaching the original email I sent to Agere and their response for
> > > >> the record, hoping it helps clarify the legal position.
> > > > 
> > > > Very nice, thanks for forwarding this on.
> > > > 
> > > > As the license is BSD, that means we can place it in the kernel tree.
> > > > Do you all mind if I add it to the drivers/staging/ directory so you can
> > > > work on cleaning it up within the main kernel tree infrastructure?
> > >
> > 
> > I do not mind but it is likely makes no sense for H-I now; and
> > I do not own H-II myself so cannot work on it. If we are focusing on
> > H-2/2.5, it would make more sense to make similar modifications to
> > 7.22 driver set from Agere to avoid overlap with Orinoco.
> 
> Ok, let me know what you think is the best thing to do, and I'll be glad
> to help you out with it.

I tend to think that only for USB hardware do we need a new driver, and
that driver can share some things with both hostap and orinoco.  If at
all possible, lets integrate missing hardware support into _existing_
drivers instead of importing drivers of questionable quality.  I've seen
wlags49 before and it's not great.  Right now we don't have any viable
Orinoco USB driver, and while linux-wlan-ng was proposed, there's no way
we're taking a third 802.11 "stack" or the bits in those drivers that
overlap with existing drivers' hardware support.

Dan

Re: Agere Hermes source-code: copyright situation

[Greg KH]

On Thu, Oct 02, 2008 at 04:31:57PM -0400, Dan Williams wrote:
> On Thu, 2008-10-02 at 13:00 -0700, Greg KH wrote:
> > On Thu, Oct 02, 2008 at 06:37:18AM +0400, Andrey Borzenkov wrote:
> > > TJ you can answer me using arvidjaar (at) newmail dot ru. Hopefully
> > > one of them works. Re WPA2 - there is no information how to setup
> > > CCMP/AES (even if firmware supports it); so no WPA2.
> > > 
> > > On Thursday 02 October 2008, Dave wrote:
> > > > Greg KH wrote:
> > > > > On Wed, Oct 01, 2008 at 05:40:29PM +0100, TJ wrote:
> > > > >> On Wed, 2008-10-01 at 14:13 +0400, Andrey Borzenkov wrote:
> > > > >>>On Wednesday 01 October 2008, Greg KH wrote:
> > > > >>>> On Mon, Sep 29, 2008 at 09:49:34AM +0400, Andrey Borzenkov wrote:
> > > > >>>>> I have here driver that can be built for two different types of
> > > > >>>>> hardware from basically the same sources (this is port of old Agere
> > > > >>>>> drivers for Hermes-I/Hermes-II chipsets).
> > > > >>>> 
> > > > >>>> Cool, do you have a link to the code, I'd be glad to add it to
> > > > >>>> drivers/staging/ if it's not in a fully-mergable state yet to get wider
> > > > >>>> users for it.
> > > > >>>
> > > > >>> You can look at it here: http://arvidjaar.newmail.ru/wlags49.tar.bz
> > > > >>>
> > > > >>> I doubt that it is suitable for inclusion at current state if ever.
> > > > >>> This is taken directly from Agere 2.4 sources; the only parts that were
> > > > >>> touched are kernel glue and wireless extensions interface.
> > > > >>>
> > > > >>> And it is not GPL'ed, of course. I attach E-Mail I received a while
> > > > >>> back with answere from Agere legal department.
> > > > >>
> > > > >> I'm attaching the original email I sent to Agere and their response for
> > > > >> the record, hoping it helps clarify the legal position.
> > > > > 
> > > > > Very nice, thanks for forwarding this on.
> > > > > 
> > > > > As the license is BSD, that means we can place it in the kernel tree.
> > > > > Do you all mind if I add it to the drivers/staging/ directory so you can
> > > > > work on cleaning it up within the main kernel tree infrastructure?
> > > >
> > > 
> > > I do not mind but it is likely makes no sense for H-I now; and
> > > I do not own H-II myself so cannot work on it. If we are focusing on
> > > H-2/2.5, it would make more sense to make similar modifications to
> > > 7.22 driver set from Agere to avoid overlap with Orinoco.
> > 
> > Ok, let me know what you think is the best thing to do, and I'll be glad
> > to help you out with it.
> 
> I tend to think that only for USB hardware do we need a new driver, and
> that driver can share some things with both hostap and orinoco.  If at
> all possible, lets integrate missing hardware support into _existing_
> drivers instead of importing drivers of questionable quality.  I've seen
> wlags49 before and it's not great.  Right now we don't have any viable
> Orinoco USB driver, and while linux-wlan-ng was proposed, there's no way
> we're taking a third 802.11 "stack" or the bits in those drivers that
> overlap with existing drivers' hardware support.

I just added the wlan-ng usb driver (and stack) to the drivers/staging/
tree a few hours ago :)

So yes, we do need to do this kind of migration, at the moment I am
trying to track down all out-of-tree drivers that distros and users are
relying on to get them into staging/ and then we can work on cleaning
them up and moving them to the proper place in the kernel tree.

Sound good?

So, for this driver, should I do the same thing, as I don't think these
devices are covered by any other driver at the moment, right?

thanks,

greg k-h

Re: Agere Hermes source-code: copyright situation

[Dan Williams]

On Thu, 2008-10-02 at 13:37 -0700, Greg KH wrote:
> On Thu, Oct 02, 2008 at 04:31:57PM -0400, Dan Williams wrote:
> > On Thu, 2008-10-02 at 13:00 -0700, Greg KH wrote:
> > > On Thu, Oct 02, 2008 at 06:37:18AM +0400, Andrey Borzenkov wrote:
> > > > TJ you can answer me using arvidjaar (at) newmail dot ru. Hopefully
> > > > one of them works. Re WPA2 - there is no information how to setup
> > > > CCMP/AES (even if firmware supports it); so no WPA2.
> > > > 
> > > > On Thursday 02 October 2008, Dave wrote:
> > > > > Greg KH wrote:
> > > > > > On Wed, Oct 01, 2008 at 05:40:29PM +0100, TJ wrote:
> > > > > >> On Wed, 2008-10-01 at 14:13 +0400, Andrey Borzenkov wrote:
> > > > > >>>On Wednesday 01 October 2008, Greg KH wrote:
> > > > > >>>> On Mon, Sep 29, 2008 at 09:49:34AM +0400, Andrey Borzenkov wrote:
> > > > > >>>>> I have here driver that can be built for two different types of
> > > > > >>>>> hardware from basically the same sources (this is port of old Agere
> > > > > >>>>> drivers for Hermes-I/Hermes-II chipsets).
> > > > > >>>> 
> > > > > >>>> Cool, do you have a link to the code, I'd be glad to add it to
> > > > > >>>> drivers/staging/ if it's not in a fully-mergable state yet to get wider
> > > > > >>>> users for it.
> > > > > >>>
> > > > > >>> You can look at it here: http://arvidjaar.newmail.ru/wlags49.tar.bz
> > > > > >>>
> > > > > >>> I doubt that it is suitable for inclusion at current state if ever.
> > > > > >>> This is taken directly from Agere 2.4 sources; the only parts that were
> > > > > >>> touched are kernel glue and wireless extensions interface.
> > > > > >>>
> > > > > >>> And it is not GPL'ed, of course. I attach E-Mail I received a while
> > > > > >>> back with answere from Agere legal department.
> > > > > >>
> > > > > >> I'm attaching the original email I sent to Agere and their response for
> > > > > >> the record, hoping it helps clarify the legal position.
> > > > > > 
> > > > > > Very nice, thanks for forwarding this on.
> > > > > > 
> > > > > > As the license is BSD, that means we can place it in the kernel tree.
> > > > > > Do you all mind if I add it to the drivers/staging/ directory so you can
> > > > > > work on cleaning it up within the main kernel tree infrastructure?
> > > > >
> > > > 
> > > > I do not mind but it is likely makes no sense for H-I now; and
> > > > I do not own H-II myself so cannot work on it. If we are focusing on
> > > > H-2/2.5, it would make more sense to make similar modifications to
> > > > 7.22 driver set from Agere to avoid overlap with Orinoco.
> > > 
> > > Ok, let me know what you think is the best thing to do, and I'll be glad
> > > to help you out with it.
> > 
> > I tend to think that only for USB hardware do we need a new driver, and
> > that driver can share some things with both hostap and orinoco.  If at
> > all possible, lets integrate missing hardware support into _existing_
> > drivers instead of importing drivers of questionable quality.  I've seen
> > wlags49 before and it's not great.  Right now we don't have any viable
> > Orinoco USB driver, and while linux-wlan-ng was proposed, there's no way
> > we're taking a third 802.11 "stack" or the bits in those drivers that
> > overlap with existing drivers' hardware support.
> 
> I just added the wlan-ng usb driver (and stack) to the drivers/staging/
> tree a few hours ago :)
> 
> So yes, we do need to do this kind of migration, at the moment I am
> trying to track down all out-of-tree drivers that distros and users are
> relying on to get them into staging/ and then we can work on cleaning
> them up and moving them to the proper place in the kernel tree.
> 
> Sound good?
> 
> So, for this driver, should I do the same thing, as I don't think these
> devices are covered by any other driver at the moment, right?

Prism II USB devices are only covered by linux-wlan-ng, yes.

Dan