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From: "Luis R. Rodriguez" <mcgrof@gmail.com>
Date: Mon, 31 Aug 2009 16:37:43 -0700
Message-ID: <43e72e890908311637r7b079e9fj2ac6b77f2b59eb79@mail.gmail.com>
Subject: Re: rtl8187b Problem with tx level
To: =?UTF-8?Q?G=C3=A1bor_Stefanik?= <netrolller.3d@gmail.com>,
	"John W. Linville" <linville@tuxdriver.com>,
	Greg KH <greg@kroah.com>
Cc: Larry Finger <Larry.Finger@lwfinger.net>,
	Hin-Tak Leung <hintak.leung@gmail.com>,
	Tobias Schlemmer <keinstein_junior@gmx.net>,
	linux-wireless@vger.kernel.org
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Sender: linux-wireless-owner@vger.kernel.org

2009/8/31 Gábor Stefanik <netrolller.3d@gmail.com>:
> On Mon, Aug 31, 2009 at 11:10 PM, Larry Finger<Larry.Finger@lwfinger.net> wrote:
>> Hin-Tak Leung wrote:
>>>
>>> I just took a look at the history - there aren't obvious bug fixes, a
>>> bunch of work queue-related changes from you & Johannes; feature-wise,
>>> Larry added LED blinking after 2.6.30, and Herton added rfkill support
>>> quite recently after 2.6.31-rc7 . But no, there isn't any change that
>>> would affect tx level beyond 2.6.31-rc7, I think.
>>
>> Your analysis matches my recollection.
>>
>> Apparently RealTek is supplying a closed-source driver for RTL8187B
>> these days. There are no sources for the B on their web site. In
>> addition, the one that Tobias loaded tainted his kernel.
>>
>> Larry
>
> The driver is not actually closed-source; they just don't provide any
> drivers on their site anymore, instead they send their reference
> drivers to OEMs, expecting the OEMs to release their own versions
> (with sources - most vendors who do release Linux drivers in fact only
> release sources, without binaries). The reason for this appears to be
> that Realtek now encourages vendors to sell RTL81xx wireless chips
> with modified USB IDs. (Or are you seeing a binary-only driver on
> realtek.com.tw? That would definitely be a GPL violation, given that
> they use a modified version of the GPLed libipw stack.)

Gabor, do you speak to RealkTek folks? It seems what may be best for
OEMs and RealTek themselves is to post drivers for inclusion into
staging first and then for interested parties to port them properly.

  Luis