Crossroads

[David Johnson]

On Tuesday 13 March 2007 17:52, you wrote:
>
>   1) We can't find a WiFi Chipset with GPL'ed drivers -- We know
>   this has been discussed (to death) on this list, but as we're
>   beginning work on the next summer hardware refresh we still can't seem
>   to find a vendor that meets our strict requirements: Namely, we refuse
>   to put anything binary in the kernel.
>

Realtek have the rtl8187 and rtl8185 chipsets[1], although I'm not sure of 
their suitability for this type of application. Their major advantage is that 
they don't require any firmware to be loaded. There are GPL'd drivers[2] 
being semi-maintained by Realtek, but they're a real mess and really need 
re-writing from scratch. The driver was originally written by a guy in the 
community to whom Realtek provided the specs, but he's seemingly abandoned 
his project[3] which is why Realtek are now maintaining the drivers 
themselves.

I'm not sure if these chipsets are suitable, but if not I'm sure Realtek have 
something you could use and they seem happy to cooperate with the community 
most of the time.

Regards,
David.

[1] http://tinyurl.com/yo5u7l
[2] http://tinyurl.com/y6mp3r
[3] http://rtl8180-sa2400.sourceforge.net/

-- 
David Johnson
www.david-web.co.uk