WiFi permanently disappeared after booting test kernel [SOLVED]

[Bruno Wolff III]

On Fri, Feb 01, 2013 at 13:43:39 -0500,
   Bill Davidsen <davidsen at tmr.com> wrote:
>>
>Don't be dismayed, that's why it's useful. It really keeps the driver 
>from being loaded, and that's a good thing. Why do you want this? 
>Because Fedora doesn't work as shipped with the majority of wireless 
>adaptors, who's vendors have a license which fails the Fedora purity 
>test. By blocking the unclean adaptor completely you can plug in a 
>USB model which will work well enough to download the drivers which 
>work and install them.

You mean a license that allows Fedora to redistribute the firmware legally. 
 From the wiki page covering acceptible licenses covering binary firmware:

The Fedora Project considers a firmware license acceptable if:

     it allows some form of royalty-free use, subject to restrictions that the Fedora Project has determined are acceptable for firmware licenses (see below), and
     it does not restrict redistribution in ways that would make a software license unacceptable under Fedora licensing guidelines, except by:
         requiring that the firmware be redistributed only as incorporated in the redistributor's product (or as a maintenance update for existing end users of the redistributor's product), possibly limited further to those products of the redistributor that support or contain the hardware associated with the licensed firmware; and
         requiring the redistributor to pass on or impose conditions on users that are no more restrictive than those authorized by this Fedora firmware licensing policy. 

A non-exhaustive list of restrictions on use that Fedora considers acceptable for firmware licenses are:

     any restrictions that are found in software licenses that are acceptable for Fedora;
     prohibitions on modification;
     prohibitions on reverse engineering, disassembly or decompilation;
     restricting use to use in conjunction with the hardware associated with the firmware license. 

Claiming that there is purity test involved, suggests that Fedora is not 
allowing licenses for firmware that could be redistributed by the project. 
For issues with being able to firmware, please direct complaints to the 
companies that make the products using it.

You also use that phrase when indicating why Fedora doesn't allow some 
packages being included because of their licenses. As long as there is 
source that is covered by a free license, the license shouldn't be a 
problem. There are some non-free licenses that if were included, would prevent 
people from using Fedora in certain ways. (Mostly this would be packages 
that can't be used commercially.) The project has a policy not to do this.
The other big blocker is patents and that doesn't have to do with licenses, 
but rather being able to legally redistribute software that infringe 
upon software patents.

If you are interested in packages that have non-free licenses, you can 
take a look at the rpmfusion nonfree repo.

If you are interested in packages that are free, but can't legally be 
redistributed in some locations because of software patents, take a 
look at the rpmfusion free repo.