Open hardware wireless cards

Open hardware wireless cards

[Luis R. Rodriguez]

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On Wed, Jan 05, 2005 at 02:24:47PM -0500, Luis R. Rodriguez wrote:
<-- snip -->

> As far as support for the new chipsets goes -- sorry -- we won't be able
> to support it as I don't think even Conexant has a final well tested
> linux source base ready for 2.6. And even if we are given a source base
> there is nothing we can do to get around the need for the closed-source 
> softmac libs that it relies on. As much as I'd like to support it, I
> don't want to get a headache to support something I cannot modify so I
> won't be willing to support a half-opened driver as the atheros driver.

I'd also like to add...

For those of you frustrated about our current wireless driver situation
in open platforms --

I think we probably will have this trouble with most modern hardware for a while
(graphics cards, wireless driver, etc). A lot of has to do with patent
infringement issues, "intellectual property" protection, and other
business-oriented excuses.

What I think we probably will have to do is just work torwards seeing if
we can come up with our own open wireless hardware. I know there was
a recent thread on lkml about an open video card -- anyone know where
that ended up?

If we can't come up with our own project to work on open hardware we can
also just see if its feasible to purchase hardware companies on the
verge of going backrupt and buy them out and release the specs/etc (a la
blender). Can someone do the math here? I'm lazy.

	Luis

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Re: Open hardware wireless cards

[Lennart Sorensen]

On Wed, Jan 05, 2005 at 03:05:26PM -0500, Luis R. Rodriguez wrote:
> I'd also like to add...
> 
> For those of you frustrated about our current wireless driver situation
> in open platforms --
> 
> I think we probably will have this trouble with most modern hardware for a while
> (graphics cards, wireless driver, etc). A lot of has to do with patent
> infringement issues, "intellectual property" protection, and other
> business-oriented excuses.
>
> What I think we probably will have to do is just work torwards seeing if
> we can come up with our own open wireless hardware. I know there was
> a recent thread on lkml about an open video card -- anyone know where
> that ended up?
> 
> If we can't come up with our own project to work on open hardware we can
> also just see if its feasible to purchase hardware companies on the
> verge of going backrupt and buy them out and release the specs/etc (a la
> blender). Can someone do the math here? I'm lazy.

Being open doesn't mean you aren't violating some stupid patent.
Software patents really are an incredibly stupid idea.  Algorithms are
pushing it.  After all what does the algorithm do on it's own?  Can you
show it working and doing something?

Len Sorensen

Re: Open hardware wireless cards

[linux-os]

On Wed, 5 Jan 2005 lsorense@csclub.uwaterloo.ca wrote:

> On Wed, Jan 05, 2005 at 03:05:26PM -0500, Luis R. Rodriguez wrote:
>> I'd also like to add...
>>
>> For those of you frustrated about our current wireless driver situation
>> in open platforms --
>>
>> I think we probably will have this trouble with most modern hardware for a while
>> (graphics cards, wireless driver, etc). A lot of has to do with patent
>> infringement issues, "intellectual property" protection, and other
>> business-oriented excuses.
>>
>> What I think we probably will have to do is just work torwards seeing if
>> we can come up with our own open wireless hardware. I know there was
>> a recent thread on lkml about an open video card -- anyone know where
>> that ended up?
>>
>> If we can't come up with our own project to work on open hardware we can
>> also just see if its feasible to purchase hardware companies on the
>> verge of going backrupt and buy them out and release the specs/etc (a la
>> blender). Can someone do the math here? I'm lazy.
>
> Being open doesn't mean you aren't violating some stupid patent.
> Software patents really are an incredibly stupid idea.  Algorithms are
> pushing it.  After all what does the algorithm do on it's own?  Can you
> show it working and doing something?
>
> Len Sorensen

Well its mostly about making boards just a bit too cheap.

If the vendors would just put in a serial EPROM that loads the
proprietary stuff to their PLD upon startup, then there is
no "proprietary" code to worry about. You have the generic
published interface like a PLX chip, plus the specific published
register functions of their PLD chip. How the device actually
makes smoke and mirrors is hidden even from the programmer.

But, by eliminating the US$0.50 cost of a EPROM, they want to supply
a sack of bits that needs to be uploaded to the PLD by software. This
sack of bits can be reverse-engineered so companies are not going
to supply these (you can extract those bits from a Win-Modem dll so
this gets a bit too ridiculous for some devices).

In most cases it's not some algorithm that needs to be protected.
Instead its the 400-or-so engineering man-hours used to develop the
contents of the PLD (notice I did not use the words "Gate-Arrays"
until now. There are many kinds of Programmable Logic Devices).

Until vendors stop being penny-wise-pound-foolish, we will continue
to have these kinds of problems. Vendor education will ultimately
be the fix, I predict.

Cheers,
Dick Johnson
Penguin : Linux version 2.6.10 on an i686 machine (5537.79 BogoMips).
  Notice : All mail here is now cached for review by Dictator Bush.
                  98.36% of all statistics are fiction.

Re: Open hardware wireless cards

[Lennart Sorensen]

On Wed, Jan 05, 2005 at 03:48:46PM -0500, linux-os wrote:
> Well its mostly about making boards just a bit too cheap.
> 
> If the vendors would just put in a serial EPROM that loads the
> proprietary stuff to their PLD upon startup, then there is
> no "proprietary" code to worry about. You have the generic
> published interface like a PLX chip, plus the specific published
> register functions of their PLD chip. How the device actually
> makes smoke and mirrors is hidden even from the programmer.
> 
> But, by eliminating the US$0.50 cost of a EPROM, they want to supply
> a sack of bits that needs to be uploaded to the PLD by software. This
> sack of bits can be reverse-engineered so companies are not going
> to supply these (you can extract those bits from a Win-Modem dll so
> this gets a bit too ridiculous for some devices).
> 
> In most cases it's not some algorithm that needs to be protected.
> Instead its the 400-or-so engineering man-hours used to develop the
> contents of the PLD (notice I did not use the words "Gate-Arrays"
> until now. There are many kinds of Programmable Logic Devices).
> 
> Until vendors stop being penny-wise-pound-foolish, we will continue
> to have these kinds of problems. Vendor education will ultimately
> be the fix, I predict.

Well unfortunately I think you underestimate the cost of the serial
eprom needed to do the load on an fpga or pld or the like.  According to
our suppliers they are actually rather hard to get for some reason (that
I don't understand) and are more than $0.50.  The product I am current
working on software for would be a whole lot simpler if we could just
program an eprom with the fpga code, but instead we have to load it via
jtag through the parallel port to save a fair bit of moeny on eprom
chips assuming we could even get them in the quantities we would need.

The winmodem is just a sound card with the cpu doing the actual
algorihtm.  That is different and would not be solved with an eprom,
only with a real DSP or other chip capable of doing the modulation and
demodulation of the signals.  I guess calling them modem's is being too
generous, more like phone line sampler cards.

Len Sorensen

Re: Open hardware wireless cards

[Tomasz Torcz]

On Wed, Jan 05, 2005 at 03:14:34PM -0500, Lennart Sorensen wrote:
> > If we can't come up with our own project to work on open hardware we can
> > also just see if its feasible to purchase hardware companies on the
> > verge of going backrupt and buy them out and release the specs/etc (a la
> > blender). Can someone do the math here? I'm lazy.
> 
> Being open doesn't mean you aren't violating some stupid patent.

 Only in some countries. We can ignore those countries.

-- 
Tomasz Torcz                 "God, root, what's the difference?"
zdzichu@irc.-nie.spam-.pl         "God is more forgiving."

Re: Open hardware wireless cards

[Adrian Bunk]

On Wed, Jan 05, 2005 at 10:09:29PM +0100, Tomasz Torcz wrote:
> On Wed, Jan 05, 2005 at 03:14:34PM -0500, Lennart Sorensen wrote:
> > > If we can't come up with our own project to work on open hardware we can
> > > also just see if its feasible to purchase hardware companies on the
> > > verge of going backrupt and buy them out and release the specs/etc (a la
> > > blender). Can someone do the math here? I'm lazy.
> > 
> > Being open doesn't mean you aren't violating some stupid patent.
> 
>  Only in some countries. We can ignore those countries.

Patents on hardware are legal and common in _many_ countries including 
all countries in the EU.

cu
Adrian

-- 

       "Is there not promise of rain?" Ling Tan asked suddenly out
        of the darkness. There had been need of rain for many days.
       "Only a promise," Lao Er said.
                                       Pearl S. Buck - Dragon Seed

Re: Open hardware wireless cards

[Norbert van Nobelen]

On Saturday 08 January 2005 21:47, you wrote:
> On Wed, Jan 05, 2005 at 10:09:29PM +0100, Tomasz Torcz wrote:
> > On Wed, Jan 05, 2005 at 03:14:34PM -0500, Lennart Sorensen wrote:
> > > > If we can't come up with our own project to work on open hardware we
> > > > can also just see if its feasible to purchase hardware companies on
> > > > the verge of going backrupt and buy them out and release the
> > > > specs/etc (a la blender). Can someone do the math here? I'm lazy.
> > >
> > > Being open doesn't mean you aren't violating some stupid patent.
> >
> >  Only in some countries. We can ignore those countries.
>
> Patents on hardware are legal and common in _many_ countries including
> all countries in the EU.
>
> cu
> Adrian

There are several independent designs in the market for these chipsets, but as 
far as I know the patents only govern the complete chipset, thus the contents 
of the chipset is not to be worried about.
The other patent issue is the 802.11 standard itself. Is that patent free? 
(IE: That would be a stupid patent)

-- 
<a href="http://www.edusupport.nl">EduSupport: Linux Desktop for schools and 
small to medium business in The Netherlands and Belgium</a>

Re: Open hardware wireless cards

[Bernd Petrovitsch]

On Sun, 2005-01-09 at 10:59 +0100, Norbert van Nobelen wrote:
> On Saturday 08 January 2005 21:47, you wrote:
> > On Wed, Jan 05, 2005 at 10:09:29PM +0100, Tomasz Torcz wrote:
> > > On Wed, Jan 05, 2005 at 03:14:34PM -0500, Lennart Sorensen wrote:
[...]
> > > > Being open doesn't mean you aren't violating some stupid patent.
> > >
> > >  Only in some countries. We can ignore those countries.

Hardly. (Almost) all of the western world is included (and probably most
of the rest).

> > Patents on hardware are legal and common in _many_ countries including
> > all countries in the EU.

In general yes.

> There are several independent designs in the market for these chipsets, but as 
> far as I know the patents only govern the complete chipset, thus the contents 
> of the chipset is not to be worried about.
> The other patent issue is the 802.11 standard itself. Is that patent free? 
> (IE: That would be a stupid patent)

You know how many "stupid" patents out there?
An yes, they are granted and they (actually their holders) wait until
they are legal.

	Bernd
-- 
Firmix Software GmbH                   http://www.firmix.at/
mobil: +43 664 4416156                 fax: +43 1 7890849-55
          Embedded Linux Development and Services

Re: Open hardware wireless cards

[Alan Cox]

On Sul, 2005-01-09 at 09:59, Norbert van Nobelen wrote:
> There are several independent designs in the market for these chipsets, but as 
> far as I know the patents only govern the complete chipset, thus the contents 
> of the chipset is not to be worried about.
> The other patent issue is the 802.11 standard itself. Is that patent free? 
> (IE: That would be a stupid patent)

There are a set of patents involved for the hardware but when you buy
the chipsets you normally buy the chipsets and all the attached rights
to use, just like when you buy a pentium IV you don't then go and get a
set of patent licenses from amd, intel. ibm and so on.

To sell the product you then also need to meet FCC and/or CE mark
testing as appropriate for your target market. Typically thats upwards
of $10K 

Alan

Re: Open hardware wireless cards

[Raphael Jacquot]

Luis R. Rodriguez wrote:

> What I think we probably will have to do is just work torwards seeing if
> we can come up with our own open wireless hardware. I know there was
> a recent thread on lkml about an open video card -- anyone know where
> that ended up?

It's going. the company that the dude works at gave him the go ahead to 
work full time on the project.

http://lists.duskglow.com/mailman/listinfo/open-graphics

Re: Open hardware wireless cards

[Luis R. Rodriguez]

On Wed, Jan 05, 2005 at 09:17:07PM +0100, Raphael Jacquot wrote:
> Luis R. Rodriguez wrote:
> 
> >What I think we probably will have to do is just work torwards seeing if
> >we can come up with our own open wireless hardware. I know there was
> >a recent thread on lkml about an open video card -- anyone know where
> >that ended up?
> 
> It's going. the company that the dude works at gave him the go ahead to 
> work full time on the project.
> 
> http://lists.duskglow.com/mailman/listinfo/open-graphics

Excellent we should start one for a wireless card. If we cannot come up
with enough expertise perhaps we can look into buying out a company (?)

	Luis

-- 
GnuPG Key fingerprint = 113F B290 C6D2 0251 4D84  A34A 6ADD 4937 E20A 525E

Re: Open hardware wireless cards

[Norbert van Nobelen]

You don't have to buy a company. There are white label manufacturers which are 
happy to produce any card you like (but how big will the volume be?). The 
point is just to find or design the chipset, from there on the card.
What is also possible, is just to design an open chipset like the openrisc 
guys did: They designed and published the design of a risc processor under I 
believe GPL (have to look it up).
If you let companies use that design to produce their open card, you will have 
solved the problem. Companies like Trust (Dutch white label company: Buy a 
stack of stuff, and put Trust label on it), will probably pick this up

On Wednesday 05 January 2005 21:26, you wrote:
> On Wed, Jan 05, 2005 at 09:17:07PM +0100, Raphael Jacquot wrote:
> > Luis R. Rodriguez wrote:
> > >What I think we probably will have to do is just work torwards seeing if
> > >we can come up with our own open wireless hardware. I know there was
> > >a recent thread on lkml about an open video card -- anyone know where
> > >that ended up?
> >
> > It's going. the company that the dude works at gave him the go ahead to
> > work full time on the project.
> >
> > http://lists.duskglow.com/mailman/listinfo/open-graphics
>
> Excellent we should start one for a wireless card. If we cannot come up
> with enough expertise perhaps we can look into buying out a company (?)
>
> 	Luis

-- 
<a href="http://www.edusupport.nl">EduSupport: Linux Desktop for schools and 
small to medium business</a>

Re: Open hardware wireless cards

[Luis R. Rodriguez]

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On Thu, Jan 06, 2005 at 09:02:07AM +0100, Norbert van Nobelen wrote:
> You don't have to buy a company. There are white label manufacturers which are 
> happy to produce any card you like 

Excellent

> (but how big will the volume be?). 

Maybe 100 / month?

> The point is just to find or design the chipset, from there on the card.

Ok lets try giving this a shot by seeing if we can get a company to let
another manufacture a specific card design for us.  We can do this by
getting people to sign up for the card once we have details. Once we
reach a threshold we charge all users and order in-bulk to the
manufacturer. How's this sound? We can use linuxwireless.org for this.

I'll see if I can get people from Conexant to agree to let us use the
old fullmac chipset design for starters, since we already have that
driver in the stock kernel.

> What is also possible, is just to design an open chipset like the openrisc 
> guys did: They designed and published the design of a risc processor under I 
> believe GPL (have to look it up).
> If you let companies use that design to produce their open card, you will have 
> solved the problem. Companies like Trust (Dutch white label company: Buy a 
> stack of stuff, and put Trust label on it), will probably pick this up

Cool we should get an estimate to see how many cards they'd need in
order to start a bulk order.

	Luis

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Re: Open hardware wireless cards

[Lee Revell]

On Thu, 2005-01-06 at 12:24 -0500, Luis R. Rodriguez wrote:
> On Thu, Jan 06, 2005 at 09:02:07AM +0100, Norbert van Nobelen wrote:
> > You don't have to buy a company. There are white label manufacturers which are 
> > happy to produce any card you like 
> 
> Excellent

Wireless?!?  How abour a freaking pro audio interface (aka "sound
card")?  Wireless is like rocket science by comparison.

Lee

Re: Open hardware wireless cards

[Luis R. Rodriguez]

On Thu, Jan 06, 2005 at 12:37:15PM -0500, Lee Revell wrote:
> On Thu, 2005-01-06 at 12:24 -0500, Luis R. Rodriguez wrote:
> > On Thu, Jan 06, 2005 at 09:02:07AM +0100, Norbert van Nobelen wrote:
> > > You don't have to buy a company. There are white label manufacturers which are 
> > > happy to produce any card you like 
> > 
> > Excellent
> 
> Wireless?!?  How abour a freaking pro audio interface (aka "sound
> card")?  Wireless is like rocket science by comparison.

So be it, let's shoot for friendly open sound card design manufacturing.

	Luis

-- 
GnuPG Key fingerprint = 113F B290 C6D2 0251 4D84  A34A 6ADD 4937 E20A 525E

Re: Open hardware wireless cards

[Lee Revell]

[removed prism-54 devel as it's subscribers only]

On Thu, 2005-01-06 at 12:38 -0500, Luis R. Rodriguez wrote:
> On Thu, Jan 06, 2005 at 12:37:15PM -0500, Lee Revell wrote:
> > On Thu, 2005-01-06 at 12:24 -0500, Luis R. Rodriguez wrote:
> > > On Thu, Jan 06, 2005 at 09:02:07AM +0100, Norbert van Nobelen wrote:
> > > > You don't have to buy a company. There are white label manufacturers which are 
> > > > happy to produce any card you like 
> > > 
> > > Excellent
> > 
> > Wireless?!?  How abour a freaking pro audio interface (aka "sound
> > card")?  Wireless is like rocket science by comparison.
> 
> So be it, let's shoot for friendly open sound card design manufacturing.
> 

It's been discussed on LAD and LAU.  Not sure what current status is.  I
think if the open video card is viable then this certainly is.  Pro
sound gear is not a commodity market to the same extent that computer
hardware is.

Please check out those lists if you're interested, I don't want to start
an OT thread here...

Lee

Re: Open hardware wireless cards

[Norbert van Nobelen]

My personal opinion
Sound is mainly integrated on boards. Since developing a high end card is not 
an easy job, and the market is pretty small for that (enough competition), I 
think the wireless card is not too weird to do

Plus wireless is hot. What we can do is implement the standard and add a 
little extra once we are done with that, linux a nice encryption layer for 
linux to linux communication, thus giving linux (or a windowsbox with the 
right drivers), a nice edge.


On Thursday 06 January 2005 18:42, you wrote:
> [removed prism-54 devel as it's subscribers only]
>
> On Thu, 2005-01-06 at 12:38 -0500, Luis R. Rodriguez wrote:
> > On Thu, Jan 06, 2005 at 12:37:15PM -0500, Lee Revell wrote:
> > > On Thu, 2005-01-06 at 12:24 -0500, Luis R. Rodriguez wrote:
> > > > On Thu, Jan 06, 2005 at 09:02:07AM +0100, Norbert van Nobelen wrote:
> > > > > You don't have to buy a company. There are white label
> > > > > manufacturers which are happy to produce any card you like
> > > >
> > > > Excellent
> > >
> > > Wireless?!?  How abour a freaking pro audio interface (aka "sound
> > > card")?  Wireless is like rocket science by comparison.
> >
> > So be it, let's shoot for friendly open sound card design manufacturing.
>
> It's been discussed on LAD and LAU.  Not sure what current status is.  I
> think if the open video card is viable then this certainly is.  Pro
> sound gear is not a commodity market to the same extent that computer
> hardware is.
>
> Please check out those lists if you're interested, I don't want to start
> an OT thread here...
>
> Lee

-- 
<a href="http://www.edusupport.nl">EduSupport: Linux Desktop for schools and 
small to medium business</a>

Re: Open hardware wireless cards

[Norbert van Nobelen]

Err, music, computers: Just spend a lot of time to get a series of thin 
clients running sound over a DSL network (now in testing phase, need to solve 
some network problems first :-( )

I think the idea for a good sound card is good too, I am only thinking 
different about the manufacturing. Ordering 100 cards is not going to be 
attractive in any way with price, then just use the conexant wrappers for 
windows drivers, and run your card that way. GPL is one issue, wallet content 
is the next following important issue.
Wireless cards have to go cheaper all the time. One way to scrape of another 
50cents of the manufacturing cost is by using an open developed card en 
driver. That way the card will lie in many stores and is easily obtainable 
for everybody.
The extra encryption will get the phreaks on board with it, so spreading the 
idea of open source development even further, plus it is also a show and tell 
to the market like: Open source groups are innovative, and not just copycats 
who want everything for free (like in wallet content).

On Thursday 06 January 2005 21:40, you wrote:
> On Thu, 2005-01-06 at 20:06 +0100, Norbert van Nobelen wrote:
> > My personal opinion
> > Sound is mainly integrated on boards. Since developing a high end card is
> > not an easy job, and the market is pretty small for that (enough
> > competition), I think the wireless card is not too weird to do
>
> Yeah but that's all useless to pro audio users.  And the market for pro
> audio hardware is a lot more like the general pro audio gear market than
> the computer hardware market.  Lower volume, much higher margins.
>
> Compared to the open video card project, this should be a no brainer,
> and that seems to be taking off...
>
> > Plus wireless is hot. What we can do is implement the standard and add a
> > little extra once we are done with that, linux a nice encryption layer
> > for linux to linux communication, thus giving linux (or a windowsbox with
> > the right drivers), a nice edge.
>
> There's a standard for audio-over-firewire but it's inadequate (no
> routing/connection management) so you can't just implement it.

Firewire or USB: I do not care for an antenna for the simple reason that I 
just want a powercord (-:

>
> Also making music with computers is pretty hot too if you haven't
> noticed ;-)
>
> Lee

-- 
<a href="http://www.edusupport.nl">EduSupport: Linux Desktop for schools and 
small to medium business in The Netherlands and Belgium</a>

Re: Open hardware wireless cards

[Alan Cox]

On Iau, 2005-01-06 at 17:37, Lee Revell wrote:
> Wireless?!?  How abour a freaking pro audio interface (aka "sound
> card")?  Wireless is like rocket science by comparison.

Audio is easy. Good audio is rocket science. You can roll yourself a USB
audio interface with a microcontroller and a codec ic. Getting that to
give you a really good signal/noise ratio is then rather trickier.

Re: Open hardware wireless cards

[Lee Revell]

On Thu, 2005-01-06 at 17:59 +0000, Alan Cox wrote:
> On Iau, 2005-01-06 at 17:37, Lee Revell wrote:
> > Wireless?!?  How abour a freaking pro audio interface (aka "sound
> > card")?  Wireless is like rocket science by comparison.
> 
> Audio is easy. Good audio is rocket science. You can roll yourself a USB
> audio interface with a microcontroller and a codec ic. Getting that to
> give you a really good signal/noise ratio is then rather trickier.
> 

Well, it would be IEEE-1394, not USB, this is where the market is
going/has already gone.  And AFAICT good S/N is just a matter of using
decent codecs.

Lee

Re: Open hardware wireless cards

[Aaron Lehmann]

On Thu, Jan 06, 2005 at 05:59:01PM +0000, Alan Cox wrote:
> Audio is easy. Good audio is rocket science. You can roll yourself a USB
> audio interface with a microcontroller and a codec ic. Getting that to
> give you a really good signal/noise ratio is then rather trickier.

Actually you don't even need a microcontroler: use an IC like the TI
PCM2902 (http://focus.ti.com/docs/prod/folders/print/pcm2902.html). I
built a headphone amplifier that uses one and I'm very pleased -
especially because there's digital passthrough for my speakers via
S/PDIF. The quality is nothing special, but you can always
plug a high-end codec into the S/PDIF I/O. I saw a schematic
somewhere that used the PCM2902 as the USB-audio interface along with
a high end DAC. However if you need more than 16 bits and 48kHz you
might need to make something more fancy.

Re: Open hardware wireless cards

[Raphael Jacquot]

Luis R. Rodriguez wrote:
 >>What is also possible, is just to design an open chipset like the 
openrisc
 >>guys did: They designed and published the design of a risc processor 
under I
 >>believe GPL (have to look it up).
 >>If you let companies use that design to produce their open card, you 
will have
 >>solved the problem. Companies like Trust (Dutch white label company: 
Buy a
 >>stack of stuff, and put Trust label on it), will probably pick this up
 >
 >
 > Cool we should get an estimate to see how many cards they'd need in
 > order to start a bulk order.

as far as I/O is concerned, the card MUST have an easy to procure 
coaxial connector so that an external antenna can be attached

Re: Open hardware wireless cards

[Norbert van Nobelen]

100mWatt antenna (-: Gives 4 mile range (-:
Make it USB powered (-: (so that the pcmcia card does not overheat!!)


On Thursday 06 January 2005 20:11, you wrote:
> Luis R. Rodriguez wrote:
>  >>What is also possible, is just to design an open chipset like the
>
> openrisc
>
>  >>guys did: They designed and published the design of a risc processor
>
> under I
>
>  >>believe GPL (have to look it up).
>  >>If you let companies use that design to produce their open card, you
>
> will have
>
>  >>solved the problem. Companies like Trust (Dutch white label company:
>
> Buy a
>
>  >>stack of stuff, and put Trust label on it), will probably pick this up
>  >
>  > Cool we should get an estimate to see how many cards they'd need in
>  > order to start a bulk order.
>
> as far as I/O is concerned, the card MUST have an easy to procure
> coaxial connector so that an external antenna can be attached

Re: Open hardware wireless cards

[Lee Revell]

On Thu, 2005-01-06 at 20:32 +0100, Norbert van Nobelen wrote:
> 100mWatt antenna (-: Gives 4 mile range (-:
> Make it USB powered (-: (so that the pcmcia card does not overheat!!)

Ah, this reminds me, isn't there some kind of issue with open source
wireless and FCC (or whatever your local equivalent is) regulations?  Or
was that just an excuse the vendors used for their closed source
drivers?

Lee

Re: Open hardware wireless cards

[Lennart Sorensen]

On Thu, Jan 06, 2005 at 04:00:05PM -0500, Lee Revell wrote:
> On Thu, 2005-01-06 at 20:32 +0100, Norbert van Nobelen wrote:
> > 100mWatt antenna (-: Gives 4 mile range (-:
> > Make it USB powered (-: (so that the pcmcia card does not overheat!!)
> 
> Ah, this reminds me, isn't there some kind of issue with open source
> wireless and FCC (or whatever your local equivalent is) regulations?  Or
> was that just an excuse the vendors used for their closed source
> drivers?

Just an excuse.

Someone determined enough would hex edit the code to change the signal
power.  The FCC isn't stupid enough to believe obfuscation prevents
abuse.  They just have laws against using too high a power.  Of course
enforcing it isn't easy either.  And the firmware can't prevent you from
changing the antenna and/or using a signal booster.

Len Sorensen

Re: Open hardware wireless cards

[Jim Nelson]

Lee Revell wrote:
> On Thu, 2005-01-06 at 20:32 +0100, Norbert van Nobelen wrote:
> 
>>100mWatt antenna (-: Gives 4 mile range (-:
>>Make it USB powered (-: (so that the pcmcia card does not overheat!!)
> 
> 
> Ah, this reminds me, isn't there some kind of issue with open source
> wireless and FCC (or whatever your local equivalent is) regulations?  Or
> was that just an excuse the vendors used for their closed source
> drivers?
> 
> Lee
> 

A little of both, methinks.  Most vendors build their hardware to the most 
powerful that any law (or engineering limits) will allow.  They then use 
country-specific drivers to keep tha hardware operating within legal limits.

Open-source drivers would make it trivial to make the hardware operate beyond its 
legal limits - and could potentially land them in trouble with the FCC/whatever. 
IANAL, but I'm pretty sure that there hasn't been a case of open-source wireless 
drivers tweaked beyond the legal limits landing someone with a fine.

Re: Open hardware wireless cards

[Norbert van Nobelen]

It is an excuse:
The hardware is not capable of more output than the legal limit. The external 
antenna is an illegal addition, which has nothing to do with opensource. It 
is a pretty easy mod.

On Thursday 06 January 2005 22:39, you wrote:
> Lee Revell wrote:
> > On Thu, 2005-01-06 at 20:32 +0100, Norbert van Nobelen wrote:
> >>100mWatt antenna (-: Gives 4 mile range (-:
> >>Make it USB powered (-: (so that the pcmcia card does not overheat!!)
> >
> > Ah, this reminds me, isn't there some kind of issue with open source
> > wireless and FCC (or whatever your local equivalent is) regulations?  Or
> > was that just an excuse the vendors used for their closed source
> > drivers?
> >
> > Lee
>
> A little of both, methinks.  Most vendors build their hardware to the most
> powerful that any law (or engineering limits) will allow.  They then use
> country-specific drivers to keep tha hardware operating within legal
> limits.
>
> Open-source drivers would make it trivial to make the hardware operate
> beyond its legal limits - and could potentially land them in trouble with
> the FCC/whatever. IANAL, but I'm pretty sure that there hasn't been a case
> of open-source wireless drivers tweaked beyond the legal limits landing
> someone with a fine.

Re: Open hardware wireless cards

[Paul Jakma]

On Thu, 6 Jan 2005, Jim Nelson wrote:

> Open-source drivers would make it trivial to make the hardware operate beyond 
> its legal limits - and could potentially land them in trouble with the 
> FCC/whatever.

This doesnt hold up at all, because the *closed* vendor software for 
some 802.11? radios will give you option to set the 'country' (and 
hence power), eg Netgear WG602v2 (an ISL3893 running Linux + 
proprietary mini-RTOS for the 802.11 bits + proprietary Linux side 
drivers to communicate between the two.).

Also, doesnt the USA have higher limits than most other countries? So 
the problem if anything would arise in /other/ regulatory domains, 
not FCC/USA.

regards,
-- 
Paul Jakma	paul@clubi.ie	paul@jakma.org	Key ID: 64A2FF6A
Fortune:
Democracy is the name we give the people whenever we need them.
 		-- Arman de Caillavet, 1913

Re: Open hardware wireless cards

[Christoph Hellwig]

On Thu, Jan 06, 2005 at 04:00:05PM -0500, Lee Revell wrote:
> On Thu, 2005-01-06 at 20:32 +0100, Norbert van Nobelen wrote:
> > 100mWatt antenna (-: Gives 4 mile range (-:
> > Make it USB powered (-: (so that the pcmcia card does not overheat!!)
> 
> Ah, this reminds me, isn't there some kind of issue with open source
> wireless and FCC (or whatever your local equivalent is) regulations?  Or
> was that just an excuse the vendors used for their closed source
> drivers?

http://marc.theaimsgroup.com/?l=netbsd-tech-net&m=109940554417735&w=2

Re: [Prism54-users] Open hardware wireless cards

[Steve Hill]

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1

On Wed, 5 Jan 2005, Luis R. Rodriguez wrote:

> What I think we probably will have to do is just work torwards seeing if
> we can come up with our own open wireless hardware. I know there was
> a recent thread on lkml about an open video card -- anyone know where
> that ended up?

This may be a silly point, but there *was* good 802.11g hardware available 
which worked well with the fully open drivers.  I presume the 
manufacturers are moving to the "softmac" design instead because (for 
them) it is cheaper.  However, the point is that the working designs are 
already there and it may be that buying the existing design which is being 
phased out is cheaper for the FOSS community than developing a whole new 
open device.

Maybe it would be possible to convince one of the manufacturers that it's 
worth their while producing the older design hardware - if there is a 
single manufacturer who is making more or less the only hardware that is 
guaranteed to work under Linux there is probably quite a market for them.

  - Steve       Jabber: steve@nexusuk.org     Web: http://www.nexusuk.org/

      Servatis a periculum, servatis a maleficum - Whisper, Evanescence

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Re: [Prism54-users] Open hardware wireless cards

[Luis R. Rodriguez]

[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 1911 bytes --]

On Wed, Jan 05, 2005 at 08:22:10PM +0000, Steve Hill wrote:
> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
> Hash: SHA1
> 
> On Wed, 5 Jan 2005, Luis R. Rodriguez wrote:
> 
> >What I think we probably will have to do is just work torwards seeing if
> >we can come up with our own open wireless hardware. I know there was
> >a recent thread on lkml about an open video card -- anyone know where
> >that ended up?
> 
> This may be a silly point, but there *was* good 802.11g hardware available 
> which worked well with the fully open drivers. 

Yes, that would be the Full MAC prism chipsets with the linux prism54 driver,
which I help maintain.

> I presume the 
> manufacturers are moving to the "softmac" design instead because (for 
> them) it is cheaper.

That is correct. They have already moved to the Softmac design and
you're lucky if you can buy FullMAC chipsets in stores now.

> However, the point is that the working designs are 
> already there and it may be that buying the existing design which is being 
> phased out is cheaper for the FOSS community than developing a whole new 
> open device.

Definitely, I agree. Anyone have an idea of how much buying a wireless
chipset design may cost?

> Maybe it would be possible to convince one of the manufacturers that it's 
> worth their while producing the older design hardware - if there is a 
> single manufacturer who is making more or less the only hardware that is 
> guaranteed to work under Linux there is probably quite a market for them.

I think they made the move because of economics as you mentioned
earlier. Under the current circumstances, I find it hard to be able to
Convince Conexant, for example, to start selling FullMAC chipsets again.

AFAICT the FullMAC chipsets have reached the END OF LIFE period.

	Luis

-- 
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Re: Open hardware wireless cards

[christos gentsis]

Luis R. Rodriguez wrote:

>On Wed, Jan 05, 2005 at 02:24:47PM -0500, Luis R. Rodriguez wrote:
><-- snip -->
>
>  
>
>>As far as support for the new chipsets goes -- sorry -- we won't be able
>>to support it as I don't think even Conexant has a final well tested
>>linux source base ready for 2.6. And even if we are given a source base
>>there is nothing we can do to get around the need for the closed-source 
>>softmac libs that it relies on. As much as I'd like to support it, I
>>don't want to get a headache to support something I cannot modify so I
>>won't be willing to support a half-opened driver as the atheros driver.
>>    
>>
>
>I'd also like to add...
>
>For those of you frustrated about our current wireless driver situation
>in open platforms --
>
>I think we probably will have this trouble with most modern hardware for a while
>(graphics cards, wireless driver, etc). A lot of has to do with patent
>infringement issues, "intellectual property" protection, and other
>business-oriented excuses.
>
>What I think we probably will have to do is just work torwards seeing if
>we can come up with our own open wireless hardware. I know there was
>a recent thread on lkml about an open video card -- anyone know where
>that ended up?
>
>If we can't come up with our own project to work on open hardware we can
>also just see if its feasible to purchase hardware companies on the
>verge of going backrupt and buy them out and release the specs/etc (a la
>blender). Can someone do the math here? I'm lazy.
>
>	Luis
>
>  
>
hello anyone

i thing that i didn't get the point... what did suppose to mean "we can 
come up with our own open wireless hardware". does it means that the 
kernel/ Linux community to design a complete hardware from scratch?

I'm don't know if there is people that would like to work in a project 
like that. if there is people that would like to do it i don't know if 
they can do it...

in case that i would had the choice then i get my wireless card, to make 
a new my one based to the design of someone that i don't know, not 
knowing if it is going to work in all cases and environments and knowing 
that i would use FPGA instead of ICs created for this functionality... i 
would not do it... i know what means designing hardware even if i don't 
have great experience in that (only some basic experience in Verilog...) 
i think that an idea like that is much closer to the opercores 
situation...(www.opencores.org)

According to my understanding, the problem with the wireless cards 
drivers and generally the drivers can be solved in two ways... first 
convincing the companies to produce the drivers or help other people 
code them.
OR
reverse engineering to the win drivers...(i think that this is harder)

i never understand way companies don't help with the drivers under 
linux.... in any way they are going to sell more products...

any way sorry for the long text and C.U. around.

Christos
 

Re: Open hardware wireless cards

[Karel Kulhavy]

On Wed, Jan 05, 2005 at 03:05:26PM -0500, Luis R. Rodriguez wrote:
> On Wed, Jan 05, 2005 at 02:24:47PM -0500, Luis R. Rodriguez wrote:
> <-- snip -->
> 
> > As far as support for the new chipsets goes -- sorry -- we won't be able
> > to support it as I don't think even Conexant has a final well tested
> > linux source base ready for 2.6. And even if we are given a source base
> > there is nothing we can do to get around the need for the closed-source 
> > softmac libs that it relies on. As much as I'd like to support it, I
> > don't want to get a headache to support something I cannot modify so I
> > won't be willing to support a half-opened driver as the atheros driver.
> 
> I'd also like to add...
> 
> For those of you frustrated about our current wireless driver situation
> in open platforms --
> 
> I think we probably will have this trouble with most modern hardware for a while
> (graphics cards, wireless driver, etc). A lot of has to do with patent
> infringement issues, "intellectual property" protection, and other
> business-oriented excuses.
> 
> What I think we probably will have to do is just work torwards seeing if
> we can come up with our own open wireless hardware. I know there was
> a recent thread on lkml about an open video card -- anyone know where
> that ended up?

I got open hardware optical wireless, though it's not a card, just
add-on to existing Ethernet:

http://ronja.twibright.com

Nevertheless it show how to use the free-software toolchain.

Also see GNU Radio.

http://www.gnu.org/software/gnuradio/doc/exploring-gnuradio.html

CL<