linux-kernel - Re: [PATCH] Revert "cfg80211: make WEXT compatibility unselectable"

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Message-ID: <54A41000.3040306@broadcom.com>
Date:	Wed, 31 Dec 2014 16:02:24 +0100
From:	Arend van Spriel <arend@...adcom.com>
To:	Jiri Kosina <jkosina@...e.cz>
CC:	"Grumbach, Emmanuel" <emmanuel.grumbach@...el.com>,
	Linus Torvalds <torvalds@...ux-foundation.org>,
	Borislav Petkov <bp@...en8.de>,
	"linux-wireless@...r.kernel.org" <linux-wireless@...r.kernel.org>,
	"linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org" <linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org>,
	"egrumbach@...il.com" <egrumbach@...il.com>,
	"peter@...leysoftware.com" <peter@...leysoftware.com>,
	"ilw@...ux.intel.com" <ilw@...ux.intel.com>,
	"Berg, Johannes" <johannes.berg@...el.com>,
	Larry Finger <Larry.Finger@...inger.net>
Subject: Re: [PATCH] Revert "cfg80211: make WEXT compatibility unselectable"

On 12/31/14 15:07, Jiri Kosina wrote:
> On Wed, 31 Dec 2014, Arend van Spriel wrote:
>
>> The thing with WEXT is that it will stay as is. So if tools like wicd
>> want to support new features like P2P it will need to make the switch. I
>> checked out wicd repo and found a number of iwconfig calls and they kick
>> off wpa_supplicant with wext driver.
>
> Unfortunately this is by no means just about wicd. I have already received
> a few off-list mails from people who were wondering why their home-made
> scripts / tools, which are running 'iwconfig' directly suddenly stopped to
> work, and that it was indeed fallout of WEXT going away. Given the very
> short time this has been in mainline, you can probably imagine the
> fireworks once this appears in major release.

It is unfortunately indeed. I think iwconfig and friends will never go 
away although iw is a better alternative, simply because people don't 
like to change their home-made scripts/tools. WIRELESS_EXT actually is 
largely, but not entirely, gone in upstream drivers and what we are 
talking about here is CFG80211_WEXT which allows WEXT userspace to 
interact with cfg80211-based drivers through a compatibility layer.

Regards,
Arend
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