[rt2x00-users] Ralink Firmware disassembly

[Luis Correia]

On Thu, Dec 3, 2009 at 14:07, Thadeu Lima de Souza Cascardo
<cascardo at holoscopio.com> wrote:
> On Thu, Dec 03, 2009 at 01:55:49PM +0000, Luis Correia wrote:
>> Ok, but you must realise you are talking about Ralink's own driver,
>> which is in fact present in the staging (crap) tree.
>> But that has nothing to do with the rt2x00 project.
>>
>> Try to download the firmware file only (shortned for clarity):
>> http://bit.ly/7KWX0l
>>
>> We'll inform Ralink about this non-conformity.
>>
>>
>>
>> Luis Correia
>> rt2x00 project admin
>
> In fact, I am talking about any firmware version distributed by Ralink
> that may be licensed under the GPLv2. As I said, consider it as
> dual-licensed code (if it is the same code).
>
> You are saying you will inform Ralink about they not releasing the
> source code of the firmware in the driver they release as GPLv2?

Yes, I will inform Ralink's legal team about this and they will clarify that.

> The ideal thing was that they did release said code. But I'm not
> confident that this will happen. Most likely, they will stop
> distributing the firmware with the driver or put a big message about the
> non-reverse-engineering-clause when one downloads it. Considering this
> scenario, I would rather consider the previously released blob as GPLv2
> and DO reverse engineer it.

You can do whatever you think it will suit you,

I won't do anything more than advise Ralink for license clarification,
which I managed to do in the mean time.


> I know the best option is a good relationship with Ralink and informing
> them about this is part of it. Let's go for it. I sincerely hope they
> end up releasing their code.
>
> Regards, Cascardo.

Thadeu, that is also my ideia, keep a good relation with Ralink.
And personally I would also like to see all code released as GPLv2,
but unfortunately I think that won't be possible.
They may be using some closed source code bought under an NDA and that
fact would prevent them from releasing.

I'm looking through the legal stuff while you're going for the loop
hole, anyway, good luck with it, it does look like it uses 8051
compatible instructions (yes I've tried to look at it also).

Luis Correia
rt2x00 project admin