Jeff Garzik wrote:
vda wrote:
*FLAME ALERT*
/me is slowly getting mad about his prism54 11g hardware
and its firmware, with neither firmware authors nor documentation
for this pile of silicon crap nowhere in sight
What's so cool about having binary firmware? Bugs are bugs,
and you won't be able to even see bugs, less fix, in it.
I don't like being at the mercy of firmware authors.
Well that's typical in wireless, unfortunately. Certain parts of wireless are political tennis balls with the US govt. and FCC. Sometimes "put it in firmware" is the only way get ever get open source drivers at all :/
I'll pick firmware over no-driver any day.
Hmmm... As you may know, I'm a chip designer...
Are there not open specs on the wireless protocols? Could we not design our own open-source wireless network hardware? What would the US government have to say about an open-source implementation? Are there patents which would impede us?