Subject: Re: Support for Android for mac80211 / cfg80211 802.11 drivers
From: Johannes Berg <johannes@sipsolutions.net>
To: Bob Copeland <me@bobcopeland.com>
Cc: Jouni Malinen <j@w1.fi>, "Luis R. Rodriguez" <mcgrof@gmail.com>,
	linux-wireless <linux-wireless@vger.kernel.org>,
	linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org, Amod Bodas <Amod.Bodas@atheros.com>,
	Senthilkumar Balasubramanian
	<Senthilkumar.Balasubramanian@atheros.com>,
	Sree Durbha <Sree.Durbha@atheros.com>,
	Deepak Dhamdhere <Deepak.Dhamdhere@atheros.com>,
	Xin Jin <Xin.Jin@atheros.com>
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Date: Wed, 02 Feb 2011 13:03:49 +0100
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On Wed, 2011-02-02 at 06:57 -0500, Bob Copeland wrote:
> On Wed, Feb 02, 2011 at 01:30:52PM +0200, Jouni Malinen wrote:
> > If it is fine to remove the custom wpa_supplicant modifications from
> > Android, this is obviously a moot point, but until that happens, the
> > easiest approach seems to be to provide a custom driver_*.c based on
> > nl80211 to isolate the custom changes to user space and to small part of
> > it at that. I don't really want to see new drivers trying to provide
> > WEXT support with private ioctls to address need for making it work with
> > Android..
> 
> I guess my argument is if Atheros is spending resources on porting
> drivers to Android, it would be nice to take the time to fix Android's
> userspace too.  At any rate, I disagree with the wiki's wording "the
> proper approach" as opposed to maybe "the straight-forward approach."

I couldn't let that sit there so I edited it ;-)

> Android already has a custom userspace library that sits between wpa_s
> and their Java stack where they could probably stick all of this stuff.
> If there is something that is truly missing from the kernel, then by
> all means we can add it to nl80211 for everyone's benefit.

Right. But then stock wpa_s can also get it, and everybody is happy, no?

johannes