linux-kernel - Re: Agere Hermes source-code: copyright situation

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Message-ID: <20081002203731.GA25314@kroah.com>
Date:	Thu, 2 Oct 2008 13:37:31 -0700
From:	Greg KH <greg@...ah.com>
To:	Dan Williams <dcbw@...hat.com>
Cc:	Andrey Borzenkov <arvidjaar@...l.ru>,
	Dave <kilroyd@...glemail.com>, TJ <linux@...orld.net>,
	Linux Kernel Mailing List <linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org>,
	"Casual J. Programmer" <casualprogrammer@...glemail.com>,
	linux-wireless@...r.kernel.org,
	Alexander Shirshikov <alexander.shirshikov@...il.com>
Subject: Re: Agere Hermes source-code: copyright situation

On Thu, Oct 02, 2008 at 04:31:57PM -0400, Dan Williams wrote:
> On Thu, 2008-10-02 at 13:00 -0700, Greg KH wrote:
> > On Thu, Oct 02, 2008 at 06:37:18AM +0400, Andrey Borzenkov wrote:
> > > TJ you can answer me using arvidjaar (at) newmail dot ru. Hopefully
> > > one of them works. Re WPA2 - there is no information how to setup
> > > CCMP/AES (even if firmware supports it); so no WPA2.
> > > 
> > > On Thursday 02 October 2008, Dave wrote:
> > > > Greg KH wrote:
> > > > > On Wed, Oct 01, 2008 at 05:40:29PM +0100, TJ wrote:
> > > > >> On Wed, 2008-10-01 at 14:13 +0400, Andrey Borzenkov wrote:
> > > > >>>On Wednesday 01 October 2008, Greg KH wrote:
> > > > >>>> On Mon, Sep 29, 2008 at 09:49:34AM +0400, Andrey Borzenkov wrote:
> > > > >>>>> I have here driver that can be built for two different types of
> > > > >>>>> hardware from basically the same sources (this is port of old Agere
> > > > >>>>> drivers for Hermes-I/Hermes-II chipsets).
> > > > >>>> 
> > > > >>>> Cool, do you have a link to the code, I'd be glad to add it to
> > > > >>>> drivers/staging/ if it's not in a fully-mergable state yet to get wider
> > > > >>>> users for it.
> > > > >>>
> > > > >>> You can look at it here: http://arvidjaar.newmail.ru/wlags49.tar.bz
> > > > >>>
> > > > >>> I doubt that it is suitable for inclusion at current state if ever.
> > > > >>> This is taken directly from Agere 2.4 sources; the only parts that were
> > > > >>> touched are kernel glue and wireless extensions interface.
> > > > >>>
> > > > >>> And it is not GPL'ed, of course. I attach E-Mail I received a while
> > > > >>> back with answere from Agere legal department.
> > > > >>
> > > > >> I'm attaching the original email I sent to Agere and their response for
> > > > >> the record, hoping it helps clarify the legal position.
> > > > > 
> > > > > Very nice, thanks for forwarding this on.
> > > > > 
> > > > > As the license is BSD, that means we can place it in the kernel tree.
> > > > > Do you all mind if I add it to the drivers/staging/ directory so you can
> > > > > work on cleaning it up within the main kernel tree infrastructure?
> > > >
> > > 
> > > I do not mind but it is likely makes no sense for H-I now; and
> > > I do not own H-II myself so cannot work on it. If we are focusing on
> > > H-2/2.5, it would make more sense to make similar modifications to
> > > 7.22 driver set from Agere to avoid overlap with Orinoco.
> > 
> > Ok, let me know what you think is the best thing to do, and I'll be glad
> > to help you out with it.
> 
> I tend to think that only for USB hardware do we need a new driver, and
> that driver can share some things with both hostap and orinoco.  If at
> all possible, lets integrate missing hardware support into _existing_
> drivers instead of importing drivers of questionable quality.  I've seen
> wlags49 before and it's not great.  Right now we don't have any viable
> Orinoco USB driver, and while linux-wlan-ng was proposed, there's no way
> we're taking a third 802.11 "stack" or the bits in those drivers that
> overlap with existing drivers' hardware support.

I just added the wlan-ng usb driver (and stack) to the drivers/staging/
tree a few hours ago :)

So yes, we do need to do this kind of migration, at the moment I am
trying to track down all out-of-tree drivers that distros and users are
relying on to get them into staging/ and then we can work on cleaning
them up and moving them to the proper place in the kernel tree.

Sound good?

So, for this driver, should I do the same thing, as I don't think these
devices are covered by any other driver at the moment, right?

thanks,

greg k-h
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