From jscott at posteo.net Mon Sep 6 11:38:36 2021 From: jscott at posteo.net (John Scott) Date: Mon, 06 Sep 2021 18:38:36 +0000 Subject: Understanding ath9k_htc and how it came to be Message-ID: Hello everyone, I'm the Debian package maintainer for the open-ath9k-htc-firmware packages, which I have Oleksij Rempel to thank for maintaining prior, and am working on getting it into the Debian Installer as well as packaging carl9170's firmware (which we already have, but don't yet build from source). As the hardware begins to age, I'm curious about the circumstances that led the ath9k_htc firmware (and perhaps AR9170 as well) to be liberated in the first place, the history. As package maintainer, I feel like I ought to know better. I see on Slashdot for example > There's also a cool story that is within this story... which is that > the firmware for the Atheros AR9271 chipset was released as a result > of a small device seller (ThinkPenguin) striking a deal with a large > electronic device manufacturer (Qualcomm Atheros) to build a WLAN USB > adapter that shipped with 100% free software firmware. This deal was > possible largely because two motivated Qualcomm Atheros employees, > Adrian Chadd and Luis Rodriguez, made the internal-push to get the? > firmware released as free software." Would someone who might know the details or be able to verify this account be so kind as to enlighten me or make any other remarks? I'm planning on sharing with my local GNU/Linux Users Group what I do for Debian, and I'd love to be able to share additional knowledge. -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: signature.asc Type: application/pgp-signature Size: 252 bytes Desc: This is a digitally signed message part URL: