On 1/5/07, Bob Heise <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > fredag 05 januari 2007 20:00 skrev Larry Finger: > > Broadcom has made a conscious decision not to support Linux, which is the > > reason for this reverse-engineering project. The usual reason is that an > > open-source driver would expose their intellectual property to the > > competition. Writing or calling them will have no effect. They will say > > that if you want to use their product, then you need to run OS X or > > Windows. Under Linux, you can always use ndiswrapper. Of course, if you > > have a crash while running this way, you can kiss Linux kernel support > > goodbye. > > That sucks. When the driver you guys have written works really well, people > will buy broadcom's hardware because it has good linux support and > unknowingly give broadcom tacit approval for these shenannigans, (no specs > _and_ pci devices that use 30-bit DMA). Though I guess not having any useable > driver is worse...
On the other hand, their reason is to try to make more money off hardware before others learn how it works. All useful technology that is around long enough gets cheaper, and all who restrict such intellectual property will find less and less demand for it. That isn't to say I wouldn't try to make money too; they must know this to be that concerned with getting as much as they can from it before it's completely commonplace/obsolete. But in a way I think you're right. If I had known about this situation before buying I wouldn't have gotten Broadcom, but if I had known about the situation and it had already been resolved by Linux developers, I still would have gotten Broadcom. On the OTHER hand, what's to stop them from just coming out with more models that aren't yet supported? -Chuckk -- "Far and away the best prize that life has to offer is the chance to work hard at work worth doing." -Theodore Roosevelt _______________________________________________ Bcm43xx-dev mailing list [email protected] https://lists.berlios.de/mailman/listinfo/bcm43xx-dev
