Subject: Re: [Announce] Intel PRO/Wireless 3945ABG Network Connection

From: Larry Finger <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 25 Feb 2006 16:47:40 -0600

matthieu castet wrote:
> And what happen with the userspace binary blob ?
> 
> How it will know in which country you are ?
> Does it access to a secret GPS on your computer ?
> 
> So there are 2 solutions :
> - make the card work only for a country with a flag in a RO eeprom or in 
> another place in the hardware (firmware, ....).
> - make the card works on all the possible channels.
> 
> Also if the firmware need to be load each time you reset the card (this 
> is the case with the current ipw2xxx implementation), you won't notice 
> if you switch for a firmware for a country X to a firmware for a country Y.

I haven't looked at the driver code, but I would expect it to be like the ipw2200 where the 
"country" code is in eeprom, which sets a code specifying the region where it will work. If you take 
a given piece of hardware somewhere else in the world, it will likely not be in complience.

Larry