ACX100 Firmware Licensing

From: Christian Weisgerber (naddy_at_mips.inka.de)
Date: 10/27/04

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    Date: Wed, 27 Oct 2004 18:16:50 +0200
To: freebsd-current@freebsd.org, freebsd-questions@freebsd.org

    Compared to other types of hardware, the support for wireless cards
    is lacking on *BSD because many vendors don't provide documentation
    or the cards require the upload of a binary firmware image that,
    absurdly as it sounds, may not be redistributed. Well, some people
    are working on improving this situation step by step and you can
    help by writing to the hardware vendors.

    Specifically, there already is a FreeBSD 5.x driver for the Texas
    Instruments ACX100 802.11b chipset (DLink DWL-520+, DWL-650+, and
    others), which is currently maintained externally:

    http://wlan.kewl.org/modules/mantis/main_page.php

    However, a firmware binary blob must be uploaded to the card, and
    since TI doesn't allow redistribution it can't be included with the
    driver, rendering it useless.

    THIS CONCERNS ALL OPEN SOURCE OPERATING SYSTEMS: FreeBSD, the other
    BSDs, Linux, you name it.

    OpenBSD's Ryan McBride has tried to contact TI about this but has
    been ignored and now asks the user community for assistance. Please
    contact the people at Texas Instruments by email or phone and ask
    them to enable us to provide a useful driver. Time and again it
    has been shown that vendors will be swayed if the user community
    expresses its interest vocally enough.

    Here is a list of contacts scrounged together from various sources:

    Bill Carney <bcarney@ti.com> +1 707 521 3069
    Mr Taketo Fukui <fukui@ti.com> 81-3-4331-2060
    Dr John T Coffey <coffey@ti.com> +1 707 284 2224
    Mr Srikanth Gummadi <sgummadi@ti.com> +1 707 284 2209
    Dr Srinath Hosur <hosur@ti.com> (214) 480-4432
    Dr Jie Liang <jliang@iee.org> (214) 480-4105
    Mr Joe Mueller <mueller@ti.com> 858 646 3358
    Mr Lior Ophir <lior.ophir@ti.com> (972) 9 970-6542
    Dr Stephen Pope <spp@ti.com> (510) 841-8315
    Mr Yoram Solomon <yoram@ti.com> (408) 965-2196
    Tim Riker <tim@ti.com>
    DuVal, Mary" <m-duval@ti.com>
    Anand Dabak <dabak@ti.com>
    "Anand G. Dabak" <dabak@hc.ti.com>
    Tim Schmidl <schmidl@ti.com>
    Sean Coffey <coffey@ti.com>
    Srikanth Gummadi <sgummadi@ti.com>
    Srinath Hosur <hosur@ti.com>
    Muhammad Ikram <mzi@ti.com>
    Joseph Mueller <mueller@ti.com>
    Lior Ophir <lior.ophir@ti.com>
    Stephen Pope <spp@ti.com>
    Ian Sherlock <isherlock@ti.com>
    Manoneet Singh <msingh@ti.com>
    Richar Williams <richard@ti.com>
    Hirohisa Yamaguchi <h-yamaguchi4@ti.com>

    ----- Forwarded message from Ryan McBride <mcbride@openbsd.org> -----

    From: Ryan McBride <mcbride@openbsd.org>
    Subject: ACX100 Firmware Licensing

    Greetings

    Since I do not know which one of you to contact, I am contacting all
    of you in the hopes that someone can redirect me to the responsible
    party who can help me.

    I am contacting on behalf of the open source operating system called
    OpenBSD, but the message applies to all of the other open source
    operating systems (Linux, the other BSD's, etc).

    In open source operating systems the support for some 802.11 devices,
    drivers such as TIs ACX100 chip, is lagging because the vendors are
    taking rather restrictive approaches regarding their technology.
    We have begun working on a driver for this chip, but it will be crippled
    in our operating system due to the absence of a freely available
    firmware image.

    Our policy is as follows: We will include a firmware from a vendor if it
    is freely redistributable. It can be a binary blob of data. It must be
    copyrighted, of course, but that is in the interest of the vendor.

    Our user community is very compatibility driven in their purchasing
    decisions; they seek out the components that are stable and well
    supported, and it is not the ACX100 varients that they will select.
    Even if a free driver exists, they will avoid these cards since the
    firmware is not included in the operating system, so you are selling
    fewer cards than you could. I don't know if the open source operating
    systems are rising as much some of the press leads us to believe, but if
    they are, you can no longer afford to turn your back on a fickle and
    technically savvy community.

    In the past, vendors have gotten by because there were no options, but
    now that some have begun opening up with freely licensed firmware and
    usable technical documentation, open source users have a choice, and
    they will be chosing the best supported cards, ie those from vendors who
    cooperate with the open source projects.

    There is another threat to your business model of remaining closed.
    Some vendors like RealTek and Ralink have come out with fully documented
    chipsets. Even Intel's Centrino-associated chipsets are now fully
    documented, and Cisco's remain documented. And of course we fully
    support the old Lucent, Prism, and Symbol devices.

    Texas Instruments can avoid getting sidelined in the open source market,
    by working with us to release the firmware in a way we can use it.

    Other companies that have met with the same firmware choices?

    Qlogic ISP scsi/fiberchannel PCI cards
    3com Ethernet cards that do IPSEC offloading
    Adaptec
    Intel 100mbit card firmware upgrades for bugs
    NCR for their scsi products

    There are about 20 other smaller companies on the list too.

    This is a copyright notice from a Qlogic SCSI card firmware:

     * Copyright (C) 1995, 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000 Qlogic, Inc.
     * All rights reserved.
     *
     * Redistribution and use in source and binary forms are permitted provided
     * that the following conditions are met:
     * 1. Redistribution of source code must retain the above copyright
     * notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer.
     * 2. Redistribution in binary form must reproduce the above copyright
     * notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer in the
     * documentation and/or other materials provided with the distribution.
     * 3. The name of the author may not be used to endorse or promote products
     * derived from this software without specific prior written permission
     *
     * THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY THE AUTHOR ``AS IS'' AND ANY EXPRESS OR
     * IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES
     * OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE ARE DISCLAIMED.
     * IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHOR BE LIABLE FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT,
     * INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES (INCLUDING, BUT
     * NOT LIMITED TO, PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS OR SERVICES; LOSS OF USE,
     * DATA, OR PROFITS; OR BUSINESS INTERRUPTION) HOWEVER CAUSED AND ON ANY
     * THEORY OF LIABILITY, WHETHER IN CONTRACT, STRICT LIABILITY, OR TORT
     * (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE) ARISING IN ANY WAY OUT OF THE USE OF
     * THIS SOFTWARE, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGE.

    Four years ago the open source community told Qlogic that they had to
    make their firmware free, or the driver would be deleted from the
    various operating systems. They resisted us. The driver was deleted
    >from a couple of operating systems. A few days later they contacted
    us again to make the firmware free, and the driver was re-added. We
    told our users what was going on, and told them who to talk to.

    Five years ago, Adaptec was refusing to give us documentation for
    their scsi cards. We worked persistantly to build up communication
    with Adaptec and were shunned. So we gave a list of contacts (much
    like the cc: list you see above to our user community). Our users
    contacted 40 email addresses at Adaptec. A few days later Adaptec
    mailed us 2 of every cards they made, along with 2 copies of the
    manuals for every chipset they made. And we wrote support for all
    their devices, and they have sold thousands and thousands of cards as
    a result.

    After Qlogic and Adaptec started giving documentation to, all the other
    vendors stepped into line very quickly.

    The same thing happened with Ethernet chipsets after Taiwanese companies
    started making DEC Tulip semi-clones. The market for secrets fell
    apart, price and the customer rule now.

    We hope to see TI release a set of ACX100 firmware images with
    a copyright notice as shown above. We can talk about it. We know how
    to craft a copyright notice that will be in your interests, and also
    will be sufficient for the full range of Open Source project requirements.

    Otherwise vendors who have opened their firmware and/or documentation,
    are going to eat into your business, or seen another way, you will lose
    a business opportunity.

    In a few days I will be giving the list of contact information to our
    user community -- please consider them your customers, your potential
    customers, or your lost customers.

    If I am not convincing enough, perhaps they can be.

    -Ryan 

    --
Ryan McBride, OpenBSD Project
mcbride@openbsd.org
----- End forwarded message -----
-- 
Christian "naddy" Weisgerber                          naddy@mips.inka.de
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