ipw3945 packaging

[Peter Jones]

Dax Kelson wrote:
> On Wed, 2006-04-26 at 18:18 +0200, Axel Thimm wrote:
> 
>> sorry, I'll take it back. I found the article (for German readers):
>>
>> http://www.heise.de/newsticker/result.xhtml?url=/newsticker/meldung/70092&words=ipw3945
>>
>> and the quote was from Dax Kelson:
>>
>> http://article.gmane.org/gmane.linux.network/32622
>>
>> So, indeed no love for ipw3945.
> 
> Correct, my quote was not about the firmware it was:
> 
> "It is very disappointing to see this binary user space daemon (that
> must run as root, presumably to write into /sys/) requirement. I
> recognize that it is a better poison than a binary kernel module."
> 
> Basically, I'd rather have a closed userspace app whisper the secret
> numbers to the hardware than have a close/binary only kernel module do
> the same.
> 
> Presumable somebody can sniff out what those secret numbers are (in a
> legal fashion) then the someone can fork a new driver that includes that
> functionality. Goodbye closed userspace app!
> 
> The question is, would Jeff Garzik / Linus accept the forked driver into
> the kernel?

Also, will Intel, who are the only ones who know what the card is doing, 
continue to contribute to the driver?

I suspect it'd actually be better to keep it split, and just replace the 
proprietary userland daemon with a free one, even though there's not strictly 
a *technical* need to have it there.

-- 
   Peter