Contributing to the effort

[insecure]

On Friday 12 September 2003 17:23, tom at ceisystems.com wrote:
> Hello all,
> 	I would really like to contribute some help to the effort of
> getting better support for the Atheros WiFi cards under Linux.  I am
> currently looking to make things more like the other network drivers WRT
> the way memory is used, buffers are allocated, etc.  My hope is that
> this will speed things up to the point where they are on par with the
> figures we _should_ be seeing.
> 	Additionally, I am looking to expand the encryption functions.
> As I understand it now, the only form of encryption the MadWiFi driver
> supports is "WEP".  This simply is not good enough for my purposes.  I
> am very interested in getting the AES encryption working, but have hit a
> few roadblocks.  I understand that we are not allowed (without getting a
> new FCC license) to modify the software on the card itself (the .o file
> in the source)...but I would like to know if there's some documentation
> regarding how to communicate with this file.  Any suggestions?

Offtopic, but.

Scrap 'FCC forbids open source' tale.
FCC does not forbid you to program hardware.

FCC forbids hardware verdor of making hardware which can be tricked
into non-FCC compliant operation. Providing binary-only .o module
is not sufficient because it is hackable just like all those
warez hacks and keygens for ordinary windoze executables.

Truely FCC compliant device would refuse to load firmware
which is not digitally signed by manufacturer.
Or alternatively, hardware might be made so it is physically
impossible to exceed FCC mandated power levels etc, no matter
what firmware you load in it.

IMHO Atheros just use that FCC argument to divert
'why is it not open source?!' yells elsewhere.
--
vda