Re: [madwifi-project] [RFC] Closing the project

[Luis R. Rodriguez]

On Wed, Nov 12, 2008 at 7:31 PM, Pavel Roskin <proski@xxxxxxx> wrote:
> On Wed, 2008-11-12 at 12:24 -0800, Luis R. Rodriguez wrote:
>
>> Those who are interested in this should work on it if no one else is,
>> just take it and go. Bureaucracy gets in the way here IMHO.
>
> It's not about bureaucracy.  I need help with porting the code from one
> branch to another.  In particular, with fixing SMP locking issues in the
> 0.9.4 branch.  The trunk doesn't have those issues.

If you are not getting help its because there is a lack of interest
from developers. I expected this once ath5k got upstream and once more
documentation was available.

>> Distributions will soon prefer ath5k over MadWifi. At that point
>> MadWifi becomes a relic. Its surely good to keep MadWifi code
>> somewhere for reference, or maybe for the last few devices maybe not
>> yet supported, but any other effort put into seems like fruitless
>> effort spent IMHO.
>
> As far as I know, we don't have DFS in mac80211.  In fact, the AP mode
> in mac80211 has just been enabled.

Right, more notes on this below.

>> I don't have experience with bounties but I do know I get random
>> requests to support one thing or another for money. I am going to be
>> redirecting these request more to bounties put up for upstream
>> development. I know people will work on things anyway but what I want
>> to try to do is get monetary support one way or another to those
>> working upstream.
>
> OK, let's consider it on the case-by-case basis.

Well I'm just going to direct people towards bounties myself for
upstream work. That's the advice I will be giving personally. But I do
think it would be good for the project to also reward upstream work
too, wasn't that the whole point behind the project?

>> I'd like to encourage the money left for the project for similar
>> purposes. Reward upstream development.
>
> Maybe we could have a bounty for DFS implementation in mac80211?  Just
> to try how it would work.  I also this that there should be a strong
> moral incentive for the winner.  Not just a name in the log, but a web
> page about the winner on kernel.org.  This way, we would attract people
> striving to improve their resumes, not just get extra money.

We will be working on DFS on mac80211, I will start first with STA
DFS. Also expect a lot of work from us on AP support.

>> I think MadWifi has become a big bureaucratic entity and this large
>> bureaucracy is simply not needed.
>
> I agree that we have a lot of documentation that is becoming irrelevant.
> I prefer to keep documentation to the minimum, as it stimulates
> developers to write software that just works, without lengthy
> instructions.
>
> But the bug tracking system has some important information that we still
> may need.
>
> I think the biggest impediment to MadWifi development was not
> bureaucracy.  It was the non-free HAL.

Not really, even with an alternative people are still used to coding
with it and find it easier to commit into an svn repository than
submit  patches upstream. Maybe our process is move involved but there
its also why Linux code has a certain quality in it. We tend to frown
upon crap. If MadWifi ever were to touch Linux it would be tainted
with CRAP.

> Many bugs are too hard or
> impossible to solve without having access to HAL.  As the easy bugs get
> fixed, the ratio of HAL-related bugs grows further.
>
> We have HAL sources, but it's not the sources we could use in Madwifi
> without losing some functionality.  Sure enough, the HAL sources could
> help with some issues.  But it's still impossible to put debug
> statements into the HAL uses in MadWifi.
>
> I'm thinking of having "MadWifi free edition" with limited hardware
> support specifically to address the issue of "debuggability".  Also,
> some users may free code plus MadWifi features.

I really think this is good for those interested and I respect it but
I am going to be very very honest here: this is a complete fucking
waste of time. People, MadWifi is dead, stop trying to keep it a live
by injecting its heart with adrenaline, it won't work, just pull the
plug already. If any feature is missing I think it would be more
productive to identify it and point it out and those interested in
upstream work will add it.

>  Some users may want
> support for exotic CPUs not supported by any non-free HAL.

For that you can use the Linux kernel which will get you support on
the largest number of CPUs possible.

>>  We wanted free drivers, we have them
>> now, we have opened up the HAL and have even opened up more drivers
>> and continue to do so. What I find useful from MadWifi from an
>> upstream perspective is the mailing lists and a central place for
>> people to get information/news regarding Atheros devices supported
>> upstream but I guess we can just keep this in the wireless wiki.
>
> I agree that it's better to start anew with the documentation for the
> free drivers.
>
>> Mailing lists are pretty useful though.
>
> Yes.
>
>> I agree there is some useful information present but a lot of it is
>> purely historical and I don't think much resources is needed to keep
>> that around. I suspect distributions will start preferring ath5k over
>> MadWifi around December if not already so I'm indifferent in closing
>> MadWifi. In my head MadWifi is dead already though and would recommend
>> we only promise users it will be in maintenance mode, meaning the
>> MadWifi driver will only get submitted bug fixes and security fixes.
>
> I agree with you.  We should fix the code already in MadWifi branches.
> It means we should not be _closing_ the project now.

Just my advice: let MadWifi die already, stop wasting your time.

  Luis
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