Atheros Publishes Open-Source WiFi Firmware

[phoronix]

Phoronix: Atheros Publishes Open-Source WiFi Firmware

Atheros has been more friendly towards Linux customers in recent years with open-source WiFi/network Linux drivers. Atheros has even been kind towards BSD users. The latest Atheros open-source contribution is the opening up of their firmware for two wireless chipsets...

http://www.phoronix.com/vr.php?view=MTMyNTY

[V10lator]

The new Atheros code is under a combination of the GPLv2 and MIT.

There are more licenses involved, see https://github.com/qca/open-ath9k-ht...ter/NOTICE.TXT - Example:

/*
 * Copyright (c) 2002-2005 Sam Leffler, Errno Consulting
 * Copyright (c) 2002-2005 Atheros Communications, Inc.
 * Copyright (c) 2008-2010, Atheros Communications Inc.
 *
 * Redistribution and use in source and binary forms are permitted
 * provided that the following conditions are met:
 * 1. The materials contained herein are unmodified and are used
 *    unmodified.
...

[plonoma]

OPen source drivers, even (especially) for commercial companies this is how it should be. Bring out drivers and open source them. This way they can let the community help themselves when they stop support for their older products.

[AlbertP]

@ Michael: I think you should make clear that this is about USB devices, not the normal PCI(e) wireless products from Atheros. Also these USB devices use the ath9k_htc driver instead of ath9k.

[GreatEmerald]

Awesome. I got one of the PCIe AR9285 cards recently, and it's been working like a charm out of the box. Glad to see that under Qualcomm they are continuing their good work at open-source.

[mYse|f]

Also, these are chips, not chipsets!

[LightBit]

There are more licenses involved, see https://github.com/qca/open-ath9k-ht...ter/NOTICE.TXT - Example:

/*
 * Copyright (c) 2002-2005 Sam Leffler, Errno Consulting
 * Copyright (c) 2002-2005 Atheros Communications, Inc.
 * Copyright (c) 2008-2010, Atheros Communications Inc.
 *
 * Redistribution and use in source and binary forms are permitted
 * provided that the following conditions are met:
 * 1. The materials contained herein are unmodified and are used
 *    unmodified.
...

This is not open source at all.

[AlbertP]

You're right that not all firmwares have been freed yet, this is only about firmware for USB devices so far, not about the PCI(e) cards. (In the case of AR928x bridged to USB with an AR7010 chip, those chipsets use this USB firmware too - Linux sees that as one USB device in lsusb and it's using the ath9k_htc driver too, like the AR9271.)

[Ericg]

This is not open source at all.

its GPLv2 with modifications, not that surprising. Not even the kernel is under a flat GPLv2

[LightBit]

its GPLv2 with modifications, not that surprising. Not even the kernel is under a flat GPLv2

And also modified BSD license which is not open source (http://opensource.org/osd).
GPLv2 with modifications is not compatible with GPLv2. If kernel uses GPLv2 with modifications, it violates GPLv2.