wireless

Posted Nov 28, 2008 14:58 UTC (Fri) by jch (guest, #51929)
In reply to: wireless by mjg59
Parent article: VIA releases chipset documentation

There's a big difference between Atheros' and Intel's firmware.

Atheros' firmware is a very thin layer that doesn't change. All of the interesting stuff (association, link quality computation, rate control etc.) happens in the driver.

Intel's firmware is a huge piece of software, larger than most drivers. It implements a lot of stuff that any self-respecting free software developer would like to be able to modify.

wireless

Posted Nov 28, 2008 15:18 UTC (Fri) by mjg59 (subscriber, #23239) [Link]

I don't disagree, but reliance on closed firmware doesn't magically vanish just because the firmware is in the chip rather than in ram.