Hi Andrei,
> Both. The main reason is that both iwi and ipw wireless drivers
> contain duplicated IEEE802.11 code that is now part of the
> ath driver source code. That component needs to be taken out
> of ath and made common so that all three drivers can share it.
> We've made the decision that these changes will be made
> before releasing the source code on OpenSolaris to make it
> easier to use/build/maintain. Most people wanted the binaries
> only anyway, so we felt like we had time to clean up the code
> before releasing it.
Yeah, most people are satisfied by binary. That is true.
>
> Now, if there is so much interest in having source code for these
> drivers available, we can make the old source code available
> immediately, but that's not going to be the same code that
> the WiFi team is working on now. Please let us know if that's
> what you (or other community members) would like to see.
>
> > I still do not understand why you choose not to host your
> > work at svn.genunix.org... I am sure there are community members out there
> > who could contribute to the project and thus expedite its integration.
>
> I think it is better to let the team finish cleaning up the code (they're
> almost done aside from some lint warnings) right now instead
> of having them to learn how to use SVN instead of SCCS/TeamWare.
> Let's talk about it again when the source code get released, ok?
I agree that right now it may be suboptimal to switch over, three months
ago that would make more sense.
>
> > ??? We are talking about porting opensource driver to another open
> > source driver. Why to keep it closed in between ?
>
> Because making binaries available at that time was more important
> than releasing buildable source code along with it.
You make it sound like having sources is something optional and need
not be done usually, while my position is that source availability is
the default, unless some really pressing reason prevents it.
> Actually, it would be interesting to know how many people tried
> to build ath and/or pcwl drivers from the sources that ARE
> available now.
I did when ath sources were released. Alas, my laptop has 2200
chip, so I never touched ath driver since then. If iwi sources would
be available I would definitely build my own instead of using
prebuild one.
>
> - Andrei
>
--
Regards,
Cyril
