Understanding ath9k_htc and how it came to be

[John Scott]

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.
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