Request for free-distributable Broadcom's (G|LP)-PHY firmware

[Rafał Miłecki]

2011/2/21 Gábor Stefanik <netrolller.3d at gmail.com>:
> On Mon, Feb 21, 2011 at 10:59 AM, Stanislaw Gruszka <sgruszka at redhat.com> wrote:
>> On Fri, Feb 18, 2011 at 04:21:29PM -0600, Larry Finger wrote:
>>> On 02/18/2011 03:24 PM, Rafał Miłecki wrote:
>>> >Few months later, is there any progress? Can we expect:
>>> >
>>> >1) Easier licensing of currently provided firmware (see Fedore case)
>>> >2) Firmware for LP-PHY devices
>>> >?
>>>
>>> I think we can forget this whole business. It seems that Broadcom is
>>> content with their business model, even though knowledgeable Linux
>>> users are avoiding their products like the plague.
>>
>> Broadcom will not release old firmware with redistributable license,
>> because of legal concerns, which are ridiculous for everyone except
>> them.
>>
>> http://lists.fedoraproject.org/pipermail/devel/2010-September/142893.html
>>
>> That sucks.
>>
>
> This looks like the same argument Intel is using to justify long
> delays before releasing new firmware - it needs to pass regulatory
> testing to ensure that regulatory restrictions in released FW cannot
> be circumvented. Both seem rather odd in light of Atheros's
> open-source firmware projects and general "conformant-by-default, but
> no "DRM" to prevent regulatory infringement" policy - though I seem to
> remember that Atheros acquired SDR certification, while Broadcom and
> Intel both went for regular "part 11" certification only. AFAIK the
> rules for SDRs are much more lax than those for part-11-only devices.

But Broadcom's firmware was already released, it's commonly used. Plus
they already published some N-PHY AI firmware in linux-firmware tree.
The whole situation just does not make any sense.

-- 
Rafał