Yet another FC3 wishlist

[Michel Salim]

Hi,

Would it be possible to include support for the Intel Pro Wireless
2100 and 2200 wireless cards? (The drivers are available at
ipw2100.sf.net and ipw2200.sf.net respectively)

Most Centrino laptops come with either of these cards, so it would be
a nice addition. There might be license problems with bundling the
binary firmware, but it is packaged separately from the drivers and
from SuSE 9.1 install reports it seems that SuSE just bundles the
drivers and tell their users to get the firmware themselves.

Thanks,

- Michel

[Michael Favia]

Indeed Intel Pro Wireless support (2100, 2200) would be most welcome.
--Michael Favia

[Thorsten Leemhuis]

Am Di, den 20.07.2004 um 1:16 Uhr -0500 schrieb Michael Favia:
>  Indeed Intel Pro Wireless support (2100, 2200) would be most welcome.
The License of the Firmware is not redistributable (as far as I can
interpret this "lawyer"-english). 

http://ipw2100.sourceforge.net/firmware.php?fid=2

CU
thl

[Michel Salim]

On Tue, 20 Jul 2004 08:24:10 +0200, Thorsten Leemhuis
<fedora(a)leemhuis.info&gt; wrote:
>  Am Di, den 20.07.2004 um 1:16 Uhr -0500 schrieb Michael Favia:
>  > Indeed Intel Pro Wireless support (2100, 2200) would be most welcome.
>  
>  The License of the Firmware is not redistributable (as far as I can
>  interpret this "lawyer"-english).
>  
>  http://ipw2100.sourceforge.net/firmware.php?fid=2
>   
The firmware is indeed not redistributable, but SuSE managed to make
set-up almost trivial in 9.1 by including the kernel module but then
requiring their users to download the firmware themselves.

The only thing they could have done better is to let users know when
the network is being set up; instead, there is a README in 
/usr/share/doc about it.

IMHO Fedora could do better :)

Regards,

- Michel

[Thorsten Leemhuis]

Am Di, den 20.07.2004 um 17:30 Uhr +0700 schrieb Michel Salim:
>  On Tue, 20 Jul 2004 08:24:10 +0200, Thorsten Leemhuis
>  <fedora(a)leemhuis.info&gt; wrote:
>  > Am Di, den 20.07.2004 um 1:16 Uhr -0500 schrieb Michael Favia:
>  > > Indeed Intel Pro Wireless support (2100, 2200) would be most welcome.
>  > 
>  > The License of the Firmware is not redistributable (as far as I can
>  > interpret this "lawyer"-english).
>  > 
>  > http://ipw2100.sourceforge.net/firmware.php?fid=2
>  > 
>  The firmware is indeed not redistributable, but SuSE managed to make
>  set-up almost trivial in 9.1 by including the kernel module but then
>  requiring their users to download the firmware themselves. 
If you find it in YOU ;-)

[...]

>  IMHO Fedora could do better :) 
Yes, but how? Even livna.org will (AFAIK) not serve the firmware as RPM
as they are respecting licenses. And thats correct IMHO. 

*Maybe* it could be done similar to the solution with the macromedia
flash plugin (display License during install). But thats IMHO not an
ideal solution...

IMHO Fedora needs a special application that assist you at downloading
things (like this firmware) and then builds RPMs from the files
automatically. Similar to the solution found in Suse. That could be used
for other Software with "problematic" (Redistribution-)Licenses like
Java, Acrobat-Reader also. But I currently don't have the know-how and
the time to do something like that (and it's also not an ideal solution
- I know...). 

CU
thl

[Max Kanat-Alexander]

>  IMHO Fedora needs a special application that assist you at
> downloading
>  things (like this firmware) and then builds RPMs from the files
>  automatically. 
	The mscorefonts package does this pretty well. You just download the
file, type one command, and you've got an RPM, every time. I think it's
http://corefonts.sourceforge.net/

	-Max

[Nicolas Mailhot]

On mer, 2004-07-21 at 20:28 -0700, Max K-A wrote:
>  > IMHO Fedora needs a special application that assist you at
> downloading
>  > things (like this firmware) and then builds RPMs from the files
>  > automatically.
>  
>  	The mscorefonts package does this pretty well. You just download the
>  file, type one command, and you've got an RPM, every time. I think it's
>  http://corefonts.sourceforge.net/ 
The mscorefont relies on fixed urls.

A lot of the non-free material is hidden behind click-through forms
(including accepting restrictive licenses) designed specifically to make
automated download impossible.

Regards,

-- 
Nicolas Mailhot

[Jonathan Gardner]

On Tuesday 20 July 2004 04:01 am, Thorsten Leemhuis wrote:
>  IMHO Fedora needs a special application that assist you at downloading
>  things (like this firmware) and then builds RPMs from the files
>  automatically.  
No, we need to put pressure on these software writers to license their code 
responsibly. Or we need to buy other kinds of hardware.

-- 
Jonathan Gardner
jgardner(a)jonathangardner.net

[Michel Salim]

On Thu, 22 Jul 2004 11:59:13 -0700, Jonathan Gardner
<jgardner(a)jonathangardner.net&gt; wrote:
>  On Tuesday 20 July 2004 04:01 am, Thorsten Leemhuis wrote:
>  >
>  > IMHO Fedora needs a special application that assist you at downloading
>  > things (like this firmware) and then builds RPMs from the files
>  > automatically.
>  
>  No, we need to put pressure on these software writers to license their code
>  responsibly. Or we need to buy other kinds of hardware. 
A bit hard to find a good, decently-priced notebook that does not come
with the Centrino stack though, unfortunately.

When it comes to desktop components and peripherals, I could not agree more.

- Michel

[Thorsten Leemhuis]

Am Do, den 22.07.2004 um 11:59 Uhr -0700 schrieb Jonathan Gardner:
>  On Tuesday 20 July 2004 04:01 am, Thorsten Leemhuis wrote:
>  >
>  > IMHO Fedora needs a special application that assist you at downloading
>  > things (like this firmware) and then builds RPMs from the files
>  > automatically. 
>  
>  No, we need to put pressure on these software writers to license their code 
>  responsibly. Or we need to buy other kinds of hardware. 
Maybe. But it is often not only the firmware for hardware. I often hear
people say "Fedora does not have RPMS for Acrobat Reader and Suns-Java?
Suse has, Fedora sucks!" 

Yes I know then there are repositories that have these RPMS -- but AFAIK
the licenses of this softare this is not legal (at least in case of the
acrobat reader -- not sure about suns java).

An of course, solve this problem otherwise (like a redistribution
license for livna.org or something like that) is of course the best
solution.

CU
thl