We have ath, now what about Broadcom?

Wilko Bulte wkb at freebie.xs4all.nl
Wed Jul 23 15:30:35 PDT 2003


On Wed, Jul 23, 2003 at 06:21:23PM -0400, Matthew Emmerton wrote:
> > > Folks,

...

> > > Can anyone provide some pointers or links that would bring me
> > > up-to-date on the current state of affairs on this subject,
> > > especially as it related to FreeBSD or *BSD in general?
> >
> > The folks at Broadcom have not been willing to release any information
> > on their 800.11g chips for fear of violating FCC regs. The required
> > NDA would prohibit the release of the source. You can program
> > both the transmit power and frequency if you have this. (I make no
> > claim as to whether their concerns have any validity.)
> >
> > For that reason there has been no open-source support for these chips.
> 
> Why would Broadcom be scared?  Obviously it's the _driver_ that controls the
> power/freq output of the chip, so the responsibility of staying within FCC
> regs is that of the driver authors.  Of course, the "no warranty" aspects of
> open source drivers turns a blind eye to liability, but would things really
> come back to Broadcom?

Simple: ETOOMANYCORPORATELAWYERS is most likely the culprit.. 

-- 
|   / o / /_  _   		wilko at FreeBSD.org
|/|/ / / /(  (_)  Bulte				


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