[MLB-WIRELESS] Linux on DWL 900+ APs

[Grant Diffey]

On Mon, Nov 03, 2003 at 10:24:01PM +1100, Ben Anderson wrote:
> > I tried to look at this site, but it had been /.ed and was soooo slow. Can
> > someone tell me what can you do with a hacked AP? Run Zebra / Quagga on
> it?
> > Something else?
> >
> > Regards,
> > g at z.
> >
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: owner-melbwireless at wireless.org.au
> > [mailto:owner-melbwireless at wireless.org.au]On Behalf Of Barry Park
> > Sent: Monday, 3 November 2003 5:02 PM
> > To: melbwireless at wireless.org.au
> > Subject: [MLB-WIRELESS] Linux on DWL 900+ APs
> >
> >
> > Posted on Sladshdot not so long ago. This chipset is used in the DLink
> > DWL 900+ APs. many of the associated websites are in French (Belgians
> > speak French, but with a Belgian accent) so anyone who's good at
> > translations ...
> > - Barry
> >
> 
> At the moment, basically nothing.  The kernel boots, and that's about it.
> There's a enough work to go to get things running, let alone the amount of
> work required to reverse engineer the drivers for the wireless interface
> (which don't appear to be standard, it seems to be a cut-down/direct
> interfaced chipset so the standard drivers don't work).
> 
> Get your teeth dirty on some real hacking and give these guys a hand...
> cool project..  I hope it results in more hardware companies being more
> forthcoming with hardware specs and open firmware.   I don't get it -- what
> does a hardware company lose by making their firmware open source?  (the
> source is probably licensed to licencees of the design anyway, so they can
> make their own modifications...  why not make it open-open and sell even
> even more boxes?)

For starters they probably loose FCC approval. with software controled radios the FCC has this policy that drivers need to be closed pretty much :(



-- 
Grant Diffey aka "nevyn"
(current project minitar AP's)
President of Computerbank Australia Inc.
http://www.computerbank.org.au/
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