Open Firmware Released For Broadcom Wireless 95
mcgrof writes "Linux developers have announced the release of a reverse-engineered open source firmware for Broadcom 4306 and 4318 wireless hardware, licensed under the GPLv2. 'Although the base firmware is not fully 802.11 compliant, e.g., it does not support RTS/CTS procedure or QoS, we believe that someone could be interested in testing it. The firmware does not require the kernel to be modified and it uses the same shared memory layout and global registers usage of the original stuff from broadcom to ease loading by the b43 driver.' You can go check out and download the firmware at the Italian Universita' Degli Studi Di Brescia Open FirmWare for WiFi networks project page. This is a good example of clean room reverse engineering design where one group worked on specifications while another worked on the the driver and the firmware. Kudos to the specification writers and bcm43xx development team for their hard work."
Re:Shame on you Broadcom (Score:5, Insightful)
Yup. Luckily my new dell laptop allowed me to swap out the broadcom stuff that came with it for an intel wireless card instead. $20. Works flawlessly, even with kismet. Bonus, can run managed and monitor mode at the same time:
http://www.aircrack-ng.org/doku.php?id=iwl3945 [aircrack-ng.org]
http://www.google.com/products?q=intel+3945&btnG=Search+Products&show=dd [google.com]
So, for the hassle, I'd rather have a card that is properly supported, and companies *other* than broadcom will continue to get my money.