[Prism54-devel] Open hardware wireless cards

[Rogelio Serrano]

On Wed, 5 Jan 2005 15:05:26 -0500, Luis R. Rodriguez 
[snipped...]
> I'd also like to add...
> 
> For those of you frustrated about our current wireless driver situation
> in open platforms --
> 
> I think we probably will have this trouble with most modern hardware for a while
> (graphics cards, wireless driver, etc). A lot of has to do with patent
> infringement issues, "intellectual property" protection, and other
> business-oriented excuses.
> 
> What I think we probably will have to do is just work torwards seeing if
> we can come up with our own open wireless hardware. I know there was
> a recent thread on lkml about an open video card -- anyone know where
> that ended up?
> 

Its alive. The design is being finalised. Its an fpga based card.

> If we can't come up with our own project to work on open hardware we can
> also just see if its feasible to purchase hardware companies on the
> verge of going backrupt and buy them out and release the specs/etc (a la
> blender). Can someone do the math here? I'm lazy.
> 

Its about time we do that for wireless cards.  Nobody is offering
cards with open drivers anymore. Ralink offers linux support but there
is a lot of limitations in the drivers.