Contributed by grey on from the firmware still isn't free so don't expect this to go very far dept.
Damien Bergamini has released drivers for the Intel 2100/2200BG/2915ABG Wireless network cards for OpenBSD.
Damien writes:
This project aims at supporting the Intel® PRO/Wireless 2100/2200BG/2915ABG network adapters (core components of Intel® Centrino? technology) under *BSD. The drivers are distributed under the terms of the BSD License. It is a work in progress. See the following section for more information about the project latest developments. You may have noticed that the Linux drivers developed by Intel® are under GPL and the ipw and iwi drivers are not. The ipw and iwi drivers are NOT ports of the Linux drivers but are complete rewritings (from scratch). Absolutely no code has been taken from Intel® which does not support neither officially nor unofficially these drivers in any way.
The undeadly editors would like to point out the following quote from Damien's site before people get too excited:The adapter can't do anything before it has received its firmware. For licensing reasons, the firmware images are not shipped with the iwi driver. They are distributed as a separate package.
Our readers should be aware that unless the licensing of Intel's firmware changes, it is unlikely that this driver will be included in OpenBSD.
Please don't complain to OpenBSD developers or Damien about Intel's choice of licensing on this issue. Make your voices heard to the vendor. Though I believe the address was established for support of the em(4) driver, it might be worth writing freebsdnic@mailbox.intel.com to let them know the community's thoughts on this. If anyone has a better contact address, feel free to post it as a comment and we'll update the article.
(Comments are closed)
By Alex Holst (80.160.149.62) on
By Anonymous Coward (70.56.56.245) on
By JOS (217.123.44.101) OpenJOS@groomlake.org on
The Intel license isn't that restrictive, by the way. As far as I understand it, you are allowed to copy and redistribute the firmware as you like, as long as you do not use it on anything other than a Intel wireless card. On the other hand, Intel reserves the right to terminate the license at any time.
Many moons ago, the base install of OpenBSD downloaded some extra (crypto) libraries during installation because they could not be distributed with the base install. I don't think that OpenBSD should go back to this kind of tricks. Sticking to your principles is a good thing, even if this means that you don't support all hardware in the base install.
I can live with the restrictions of the Intel license when I use it on my laptop. If I had to support 1000+ gateways with wireless cards, I would think twice before using it.
The nice thing is that everyone can make his own decision. The driver is available if you need or want it, but you don't *have* to use it as it is not part of the base operating system.
By djm@ (61.95.66.134) on
By Otto Moerbeek (82.197.192.49) otto@drijf.net on http:/./www.drijf.net
Please help in getting this resolved.
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By Daniel Melameth (67.172.134.14) daniel@melameth.com on
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By djm@ (203.217.30.86) on
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By Darren Melameth (67.172.134.14) daniel@melameth.com on
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By sthen (81.168.66.229) on
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By jsg (220.253.50.250) on