Broadcom joins the Linux Foundation
Linux Foundation Announces Broadcom as New Member Global communications leader Broadcom Corporation follows its move to open source 802.11 chipset drivers with increased open development SAN FRANCISCO, January 10, 2011 — The Linux Foundation, the nonprofit organization dedicated to accelerating the growth of Linux, today announced that Broadcom Corporation is its newest member. In September, Broadcom® announced it had open sourced its drivers for selected Wi-Fi chipsets, a pivotal move that garnered applause throughout the Linux community. Since then, the driver has been integrated into the latest Linux kernel release 2.6.37 and, as a result, is actively being improved upon by the entire Linux community. Given its portfolio of semiconductors for wired and wireless communications, Broadcom is an important addition to The Linux Foundation. Broadcom is looking to extend its open development and collaboration with the Linux community by joining The Linux Foundation and continuing its work with the Linux Driver Project. It plans to participate in The Linux Foundation Collaboration Summit, where it can work directly with community developers, as well as other industry players and suppliers. "There is no question: Linux has become a major platform for communications devices and technologies," said Michael Hurlston, Senior Vice President & General Manager, Broadcom's WLAN line of business. "Our decision to open source the drivers for Broadcom's 802.11 chipsets is in response to our growing base of customers using Linux and is the first of what we expect to be many open development success stories." "Broadcom understands what almost every major technology company today knows — that collaborative, open development results in benefits that include everything from supported hardware to reduced development costs," said Amanda McPherson, vice president of marketing and developer programs at The Linux Foundation. "We applaud Broadcom for its recent move to work more closely with the Linux community; their membership in the Linux Foundation speaks volumes of their commitment." About The Linux Foundation The Linux Foundation is a nonprofit consortium dedicated to fostering the growth of Linux. Founded in 2007, the organization sponsors the work of Linux creator Linus Torvalds and promotes, protects and advances the Linux operating system by marshaling the resources of its members and the open source development community. The Linux Foundation provides a neutral forum for collaboration and education by hosting technical events, including LinuxCon, and generating original Linux research and content that advances the understanding of the Linux platform. Its web properties, including Linux.com, reach approximately two million people per month. The organization also provides extensive Linux training opportunities that feature the Linux kernel community's leading experts as instructors. Follow The Linux Foundation on Twitter. ### Trademarks: The Linux Foundation, Linux Standard Base, MeeGo and Yocto Project are trademarks of The Linux Foundation. Linux is a trademark of Linus Torvalds. Broadcom® and the pulse logo are among the trademarks of Broadcom Corporation and/or its affiliates in the United States, certain other countries and/or the EU.
Posted Jan 7, 2011 6:09 UTC (Fri)
by csamuel (✭ supporter ✭, #2624)
[Link] (3 responses)
# In September, Broadcom® announced it had open sourced
vs.
http://lwn.net/Articles/405375/
# Nevertheless, everyone I know that has reviewed the
Ain't PR great! :-)
Posted Jan 7, 2011 6:52 UTC (Fri)
by bojan (subscriber, #14302)
[Link] (2 responses)
Posted Jan 7, 2011 7:17 UTC (Fri)
by drag (guest, #31333)
[Link] (1 responses)
The unfortunate part was that these were among the most popular wireless devices on the planet for consumers which helped contribute massively to Linux being incompatible with many people's laptops.
This is terrific progress and shows how things can be worked out.
Posted Jan 7, 2011 15:57 UTC (Fri)
by clump (subscriber, #27801)
[Link]
Posted Jan 7, 2011 8:28 UTC (Fri)
by pabs (subscriber, #43278)
[Link] (5 responses)
Posted Jan 7, 2011 13:50 UTC (Fri)
by robert_s (subscriber, #42402)
[Link] (2 responses)
I'm very impressed by Atheros's recent attitude towards the Free software community. However, with the recent purchase of Atheros by Qualcomm, I have to worry whether Qualcomm's slightly less enlightened culture will spread back to Atheros.
Optimistically there is also a possibility that Atheros's attitude will spread to Qualcomm. There ought to be a good few well respected execs in Atheros's ranks now that can testify there's nothing to fear from openness.
Posted Jan 7, 2011 20:44 UTC (Fri)
by daniel (guest, #3181)
[Link]
One can hope but it is more traditional for acquirer to have its way with acquiree, which more often than not involves a triumph of darkness over light. See Oracle vs Sun.
Posted Jan 13, 2011 14:22 UTC (Thu)
by dion (guest, #2764)
[Link]
Specifically Atheros makes highly integrated SoCs with built in CPU, wifi and switch that are completely impossible to use without signing an NDA and buying several thousand units.
There are many products that use Atheros chips where the manufacturer has signed NDAs with Atheros that forbids them from properly documenting the products, thus rendering the product useless from an OS point of view.
Posted Jan 7, 2011 14:13 UTC (Fri)
by johill (subscriber, #25196)
[Link] (1 responses)
The Broadcom firmware is pretty boring though, it's really just a bit of a state machine to handle timings etc. I know this because we've almost completely reverse engineered the instruction set: http://bcm-v4.sipsolutions.net/802.11/Microcode (it may be slightly different in the latest devices).
I don't expect Broadcom to open up their firmware for various reasons -- for one I believe they added some sort of regulatory helper code to it. It's also a highly customized processor (see above link), so they must have a proprietary toolchain etc. Michael has an open assembler/disassembler, but who knows how their code is written -- it will certainly not be compatible with those tools.
Finally, I don't believe there's any market reason to open it. Yes, the ar9170 firmware release spawned an open source replacement that adds features -- but frankly, that didn't buy Atheros anything but wows from a few people in the community -- the chip is already EOLed afaik. And since there's no guarantee for anything like that, realistically there's little incentive for a company to spend effort on it since all the features they can/want to sell must be developed in house anyway.
Posted Jan 9, 2011 18:50 UTC (Sun)
by pabs (subscriber, #43278)
[Link]
Thats very interesting about the Broadcom microcode, got a link to the assembler/disassembler?
Sadly I can only agree about incentives :(
It would be nice if at least EOLed hardware got documentation or source code dumps.
I wonder what happened to that old effort to make free firmware for the Prism54 devices.
Posted Jan 7, 2011 8:39 UTC (Fri)
by xav (guest, #18536)
[Link] (1 responses)
Posted Jan 7, 2011 15:01 UTC (Fri)
by rfunk (subscriber, #4054)
[Link]
Posted Jan 7, 2011 13:13 UTC (Fri)
by sxpert (guest, #19738)
[Link] (7 responses)
Posted Jan 7, 2011 21:42 UTC (Fri)
by rahvin (guest, #16953)
[Link] (6 responses)
Posted Jan 8, 2011 1:45 UTC (Sat)
by shemminger (subscriber, #5739)
[Link] (5 responses)
Posted Jan 10, 2011 18:05 UTC (Mon)
by rahvin (guest, #16953)
[Link] (4 responses)
Although the drivers aren't in the mainline they have great support and make sure it builds against everything. The only pain I had was upgrading the kernel alters the symbols of course and their software won't load the driver until you run their little utility to recompile it against the kernel. Everything was automated including building and installing the object. They also include all the software necessary including handshaking and obtaining an IP which negates the need for the PPPd daemon.
I liked their stuff, particularly their extensive Linux support to the point of being the primary focus of their business as most of their business is VOIP and asterisk is a big deal to them. AFAIK they are the only internal ADSL and ADSL2 card you can buy with Linux drivers (in kernel or not).
Posted Jan 13, 2011 6:35 UTC (Thu)
by xanni (subscriber, #361)
[Link] (3 responses)
Posted Jan 13, 2011 12:07 UTC (Thu)
by xav (guest, #18536)
[Link] (2 responses)
Posted Jan 13, 2011 12:44 UTC (Thu)
by xanni (subscriber, #361)
[Link]
Posted Jan 20, 2011 13:20 UTC (Thu)
by nye (subscriber, #51576)
[Link]
So is the Sangoma card, if you want the ADSL2 version.
(Also the Sangoma card seems to have problems with port forwarding. After a while (minutes, hours, or days depending on connection rate) connections to that port will just stop being forwarded until it's restarted. Since it isn't really a modem, you have very little choice but to use it as if it were a standalone router, since it doesn't have a half-bridge mode, or indeed any sensible bridging facility unless you're in a part of the world in which PPPoE bridging is an option. IE: the US. It also means you can't make bonded ADSL connections with two of them. Not that I'm bitter.)
Posted Jan 7, 2011 16:29 UTC (Fri)
by mb (subscriber, #50428)
[Link]
Hm, my definition of "integrating" is another than "dumping it into the staging section".
Broadcom joins the Linux Foundation
# its drivers for selected Wi-Fi chipsets, a pivotal move
# that garnered applause throughout the Linux community.
# newly released driver code is being treated for eye
# cancer.
Broadcom joins the Linux Foundation
Broadcom joins the Linux Foundation
Broadcom joins the Linux Foundation
Broadcom joins the Linux Foundation
Broadcom joins the Linux Foundation
Broadcom joins the Linux Foundation
Atheros is not that OS-friendly
Broadcom joins the Linux Foundation
Broadcom joins the Linux Foundation
[Off Topic] about PR S/N ratio
I thank LWN for giving me only the ... let's say "news for nerds, stuff that matters" :)
[Off Topic] about PR S/N ratio
Broadcom joins the Linux Foundation
I want open drivers for the DSL chips !
Broadcom joins the Linux Foundation
Broadcom joins the Linux Foundation
The Sangoma ADSL driver has binary only parts. The code for the rest of the other hardware is GPL. The developer didn't want to maintain it in mainline kernel and it was removed a couple of years ago.
Broadcom joins the Linux Foundation
Broadcom joins the Linux Foundation
Broadcom joins the Linux Foundation
I don't see the use of this.
Broadcom joins the Linux Foundation
Broadcom joins the Linux Foundation
Broadcom joins the Linux Foundation
The integration process is still going on and by no means finished.