Kalle Valo <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: | | This is great news. An open source Atheros driver which could be | included to Linux is really needed. | | But how was the reverse engineering done? I noticed that forcedeth | driver was implemented using the clean room design[1] and Linux | Broadcom 4301 driver project[2] seems to be using the same method.
Reverse engineering was done by dissassemblying binary HAL and in harder parts by running it in userspace(yes, that is possible) and analysing input and produced output. The crucial part was to discover the meaning of hidden part of the structure describing device state. Once this was done it will be a little if no problem to me to provide updates for this driver, unless the whole binary HAL changes dramatically. That's one of the reasons I do this work myself. | | The reason I'm asking this is that I just wouldn't want see the same | happening this with this driver as happened during reverse engineering | of pwc Philips Webcam driver (some parts of the driver were removed | from kernel, but I believe the situation is now solved). If get into trouble I write documentation :-) I promise. | Actually, what are requirements to get a reverse engineered driver | included to Linux? Is clean room design an absolute must? It seems | that reverse engineering is needed if we want Linux support for most | of the WLAN cards on the market :( | Sad but true. The problem is not at vendors' side though. Look at FCC regulations... :/ kind regards Mateusz - To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe netdev" in the body of a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED] More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
