HAL source code vs binary code
Sam Leffler
sam at freebsd.org
Sat Oct 11 17:02:07 UTC 2008
Alex Keda wrote:
> http://lkml.org/lkml/2008/9/26/321
> whether there are plans to include source code HAL in FreeBSD?
> It is very difficult to update 2 MB binary files ..
If someone wants to do the work I would happily turn over responsibility
for ath. Beware however that the code Atheros gave out, while derived
from my code base (note my name is on the files), has very different
api's (sometimes subtle), lacks important functionality present in my
hal, and is missing support for 5210, 5211, and 5416 class parts.
Furthermore they didn't even give out the driver that goes with it and
the code is incomplete (I know as have access to the code base this
stuff came from).
I will however say that releasing this code will enable me to start
pushing certain useful tools into our code base (e.g. the register
dumping tool I've used forever). The disclosure now also enables to me
to point out how to do certain things like disable CCA on certain chips
(ar5212/ar5212reg.h):
#define AR_DIAG_SW 0x8048 /* MAC PCU control
register */
#define DIAG_FORCE_RXCLR (1<<20) /* force rxclear (ignore
CCA) */
The obvious right thing would have been to allow me to give out my code
but that assumes Atheros really wanted to help the open source community.
Sam
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