Re: ancient ieee80211/ipw2200 drivers in recent kernel (2.6.14)

[Horms <horms@debian.org>]

[dropping debian-boot from CC, they've indicated this isn't a
 packaging issue for them at this time]

Hi,

Sorry for the confusion surround this, I was not at all aware
of the somewhat special state of ieee80211/ipw2200 upstream.

Let me answer some questions, now I have done a little bit or research.
Note these are the answers to the best of my knowledge, which is
limited. If you know more, please add your knowledge below.

1. Why is ipw2200 so out of date in Debian's 2.6.14?

   ipw2200 is out of date in Debian's 2.6.14 because it is out of
   date in Linus' 2.6.14. I have been told by several sources that
   this is because of Intel not pushing the driver into the
   upstream tree untill it has gone through some certification process.
   Or at the very least, its fair to say that Intel are not pushing
   changes upstream as fast as a lot of people might like.

   So in short, there are newer versions of the driver floating
   around than what is in 2.6.14.

2. Why is ipw2200 in Debian's 2.6.14 source but not compiled.

   As I undestand it, the ipw2200 driver requires some non-free
   firmware to run. The firmware is not embeded in the code,
   so there is no problem with distributing it. But the driver
   isn't particularly useful (perhaps dosn't work at all?),
   so it isn't compiled.

3. Can you disable the ieee80211/ipw2200 drivers in 2.6.14

   Unless I am very much mistaken, they are disabled.

4. Can you mangles the headers to make compilation of ieee80211-source
   and/or ipw2200-source easier?

   Given the unusual standing of these drivers, that is, they
   really are out of date in Linus' tree because the developers
   aren't pushing updates, I think we can consider a departure
   from the usual policy of only accepting upstream (that is Linus') 
   changes.

   My prefered option would be a minimal patch to allow ieee80211-source
   and ipw2200-source to compile sensibly.

   However, if someone wants to maintain a backport of ipw2200/ieee80211
   as a patch included in linux-2.6, then I think we should consider
   that. My main reservation there is that it might hold up releases.
   For insance, are we confident that updates to ipw2200/ieee80211 will
   be ready the day Linus releases 2.6.15? Also, someone needs to take
   responsibility for this task. Without that its going to end up
   a s broken patch in the tree.

   Ultimately the best option is to get newer versions of these
   drivers into Linus' tree. If there is any way that Debian can 
   help with that, then thats help that should be given IMHO.

-- 
Horms