Ryan McBride [interview] explained on the OpenBSD -misc mailing list, "we'd like to support the Texas Instruments ACX100 802.11b wireless chipset (DLink DWL-520+, DWL-650+, and others), but we can't include a working driver without the firmware binary blob, which is available but has a restrictive license. We have tried to contact TI, through all the channels available to us. They have not even replied to our mail." Ryan goes on to request that the OpenBSD community help by expressing their concerns to the company as consumers, including a copy of a letter he sent to a list of contacts within the Texas Instruments wireless department.

OpenBSD creator Theo de Raadt [interview] pointed out that this same tactic has been successful many times, specifically mentioning about six years ago when it was employed to obtain documentation for Adaptec's scsi chips. He goes on to explain:

"In this case, we are not asking TI for documentation for their boards. A driver already exists. I believe it was reverse engineered by some Linux people, and BSD work is in progress. We just want to discuss with TI what licensing changes might be possible so that the firmware for their cards can be included in Open Source operating system releases. Having to install a firmware file only found on a CDROM sold with the card after install is crazy."

From: Ryan McBride [email blocked]
To:  misc
Subject: ACX100 Firmware Licensing
Date: Tue, 26 Oct 2004 16:33:49 +0000

We'd like to support the Texas Instruments ACX100 802.11b wireless
chipset (DLink DWL-520+, DWL-650+, and others), but we can't include a
working driver without the firmware binary blob, which is available but
has a restrictive license.  We have tried to contact TI, through all the
channels available to us.  They have not even replied to our mail.

We are simply trying to have a frank discussion with the right people,
and noone inside TI thus far is helping us find the right people.
Perhaps you -- as consumers -- can convince them to talk to us?

Any other contacts you might have at TI would also be helpful.

Bill Carney [email blocked] +1 707 521 3069
Mr Taketo Fukui [email blocked] 81-3-4331-2060
Dr John T Coffey [email blocked] +1 707 284 2224
Mr Srikanth Gummadi [email blocked] +1 707 284 2209
Dr Srinath Hosur [email blocked] (214) 480-4432
Dr Jie Liang [email blocked] (214) 480-4105
Mr Joe Mueller [email blocked] 858 646 3358
Mr Lior Ophir [email blocked] (972) 9 970-6542
Dr Stephen Pope [email blocked] (510) 841-8315 
Mr Yoram Solomon [email blocked] (408) 965-2196
Tim Riker [email blocked]
DuVal, Mary" [email blocked]
Anand Dabak [email blocked]
"Anand G. Dabak" [email blocked]
Tim Schmidl [email blocked]
Sean Coffey [email blocked]
Srikanth Gummadi [email blocked]
Srinath Hosur [email blocked]
Muhammad Ikram [email blocked]
Joseph Mueller [email blocked]
Lior Ophir [email blocked]
Stephen Pope [email blocked]
Ian Sherlock [email blocked]
Manoneet Singh [email blocked]
Richar Williams [email blocked]
Hirohisa Yamaguchi [email blocked]


----- Forwarded message from Ryan McBride [email blocked] -----

From: Ryan McBride [email blocked]
Subject: ACX100 Firmware Licensing

Greetings

Since I do not know which one of you to contact, I am contacting all
of you in the hopes that someone can redirect me to the responsible
party who can help me.

I am contacting on behalf of the open source operating system called
OpenBSD, but the message applies to all of the other open source
operating systems (Linux, the other BSD's, etc).

In open source operating systems the support for some 802.11 devices,
drivers such as TIs ACX100 chip, is lagging because the vendors are
taking rather restrictive approaches regarding their technology.
We have begun working on a driver for this chip, but it will be crippled
in our operating system due to the absence of a freely available
firmware image.


Our policy is as follows: We will include a firmware from a vendor if it
is freely redistributable.  It can be a binary blob of data.  It must be
copyrighted, of course, but that is in the interest of the vendor.

Our user community is very compatibility driven in their purchasing
decisions; they seek out the components that are stable and well
supported, and it is not the ACX100 varients that they will select.
Even if a free driver exists, they will avoid these cards since the
firmware is not included in the operating system, so you are selling
fewer cards than you could.  I don't know if the open source operating
systems are rising as much some of the press leads us to believe, but if
they are, you can no longer afford to turn your back on a fickle and
technically savvy community.

In the past, vendors have gotten by because there were no options, but
now that some have begun opening up with freely licensed firmware and
usable technical documentation, open source users have a choice, and
they will be chosing the best supported cards, ie those from vendors who
cooperate with the open source projects.

There is another threat to your business model of remaining closed.
Some vendors like RealTek and Ralink have come out with fully documented
chipsets.  Even Intel's Centrino-associated chipsets are now fully
documented, and Cisco's remain documented.  And of course we fully
support the old Lucent, Prism, and Symbol devices.

Texas Instruments can avoid getting sidelined in the open source market,
by working with us to release the firmware in a way we can use it.

Other companies that have met with the same firmware choices?

Qlogic ISP scsi/fiberchannel PCI cards
3com Ethernet cards that do IPSEC offloading
Adaptec
Intel 100mbit card firmware upgrades for bugs
NCR for their scsi products

There are about 20 other smaller companies on the list too.

This is a copyright notice from a Qlogic SCSI card firmware:

 * Copyright (C) 1995, 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000 Qlogic, Inc.
 * All rights reserved.
 *
 * Redistribution and use in source and binary forms are permitted provided
 * that the following conditions are met:
 * 1. Redistribution of source code must retain the above copyright
 *    notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer.
 * 2. Redistribution in binary form must reproduce the above copyright
 *    notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer in the
 *    documentation and/or other materials provided with the distribution.
 * 3. The name of the author may not be used to endorse or promote products
 *    derived from this software without specific prior written permission
 *
 * THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY THE AUTHOR ``AS IS'' AND ANY EXPRESS OR
 * IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES
 * OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE ARE DISCLAIMED.
 * IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHOR BE LIABLE FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT,
 * INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES (INCLUDING, BUT
 * NOT LIMITED TO, PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS OR SERVICES; LOSS OF USE,
 * DATA, OR PROFITS; OR BUSINESS INTERRUPTION) HOWEVER CAUSED AND ON ANY
 * THEORY OF LIABILITY, WHETHER IN CONTRACT, STRICT LIABILITY, OR TORT
 * (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE) ARISING IN ANY WAY OUT OF THE USE OF
 * THIS SOFTWARE, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGE.


Four years ago the open source community told Qlogic that they had to
make their firmware free, or the driver would be deleted from the
various operating systems.  They resisted us.  The driver was deleted
from a couple of operating systems.  A few days later they contacted
us again to make the firmware free, and the driver was re-added.  We
told our users what was going on, and told them who to talk to.

Five years ago, Adaptec was refusing to give us documentation for
their scsi cards.  We worked persistantly to build up communication
with Adaptec and were shunned.  So we gave a list of contacts (much
like the cc: list you see above to our user community).  Our users
contacted 40 email addresses at Adaptec.  A few days later Adaptec
mailed us 2 of every cards they made, along with 2 copies of the
manuals for every chipset they made.  And we wrote support for all
their devices, and they have sold thousands and thousands of cards as
a result.

After Qlogic and Adaptec started giving documentation to, all the other
vendors stepped into line very quickly.

The same thing happened with Ethernet chipsets after Taiwanese companies
started making DEC Tulip semi-clones.  The market for secrets fell
apart, price and the customer rule now.

We hope to see TI release a set of ACX100 firmware images with
a copyright notice as shown above.  We can talk about it.  We know how
to craft a copyright notice that will be in your interests, and also
will be sufficient for the full range of Open Source project requirements.

Otherwise vendors who have opened their firmware and/or documentation,
are going to eat into your business, or seen another way, you will lose
a business opportunity.

In a few days I will be giving the list of contact information to our
user community -- please consider them your customers, your potential
customers, or your lost customers.

If I am not convincing enough, perhaps they can be.

-Ryan

--
Ryan McBride, OpenBSD Project
[email blocked]

----- End forwarded message -----



From: Theo de Raadt [email blocked]
Subject: Re: ACX100 Firmware Licensing 
Date: Tue, 26 Oct 2004 11:05:52 -0600

> We'd like to support the Texas Instruments ACX100 802.11b wireless
> chipset (DLink DWL-520+, DWL-650+, and others), but we can't include a
> working driver without the firmware binary blob, which is available but
> has a restrictive license.  We have tried to contact TI, through all the
> channels available to us.  They have not even replied to our mail.
> 
> We are simply trying to have a frank discussion with the right people,
> and noone inside TI thus far is helping us find the right people.
> Perhaps you -- as consumers -- can convince them to talk to us?
> 
> Any other contacts you might have at TI would also be helpful.
> 
> Bill Carney [email blocked] +1 707 521 3069
> Mr Taketo Fukui [email blocked] 81-3-4331-2060
> Dr John T Coffey [email blocked] +1 707 284 2224
> Mr Srikanth Gummadi [email blocked] +1 707 284 2209
> Dr Srinath Hosur [email blocked] (214) 480-4432
> Dr Jie Liang [email blocked] (214) 480-4105
> Mr Joe Mueller [email blocked] 858 646 3358
> Mr Lior Ophir [email blocked] (972) 9 970-6542
> Dr Stephen Pope [email blocked] (510) 841-8315 
> Mr Yoram Solomon [email blocked] (408) 965-2196
> Tim Riker [email blocked]
> DuVal, Mary" [email blocked]
> Anand Dabak [email blocked]
> "Anand G. Dabak" [email blocked]
> Tim Schmidl [email blocked]
> Sean Coffey [email blocked]
> Srikanth Gummadi [email blocked]
> Srinath Hosur [email blocked]
> Muhammad Ikram [email blocked]
> Joseph Mu[email blocked]
> Stephen Pope [email blocked]
> Ian Sherlock [email blocked]
> Manoneet Singh [email blocked]
> Richar Williams [email blocked]
> Hirohisa Yamaguchi [email blocked]

For those of you new to this type of (shall we call it) activism,
let me tell you something.

I think 6 years ago we asked our user community to contact Adaptec in
the same way.  We had been requesting documentation for their scsi
chips, and Adaptec had been giving us the round-about for over a year.
It was going nowhere.  We asked our users to email the 30-some email
addresses which we had attempted dialogue with over the year.  Five
hours later I had a phone call from Adaptec asking me to stop our
users from mailing them.  I said it was `beyond my control'.  They
said that a few of the people were HR staff.  I said it was `beyond my
control'.  Next day, Adaptec asked for two of our addresses.  They
express shipped boxes containing a full compliment of cards, as well
as documentation for all their chips.  As a result today you will find
that Adaptec scsi support in OpenBSD is solid.

(Similar approaches with other vendors have had impact as well;
OpenBSD -- and other systems -- are better as a result).  The QLogic
story is similar.

In this case, we are not asking TI for documentation for their boards.
A driver already exists.  I believe it was reverse engineered by some
Linux people, and BSD work is in progress.  We just want to discuss
with TI what licensing changes might be possible so that the firmware
for their cards can be included in Open Source operating system
releases.  Having to install a firmware file only found on a CDROM
sold with the card after install is crazy.

These companies are huge and they shelter their internal decision
makers; even after weeks orr months of effort it is still impossible
for us to talk to the right people, and even then, they try to ignore
us because they do not think our concerns are important enough.

As consumers, you can change that.  It worked before.  Worth trying,
no?

Just tell the right TI people to come talking to me.

Thanks.



From: [email blocked]
Subject: Re: ACX100 Firmware Licensing
Date: Tue, 26 Oct 2004 14:13:31 -0500

On Tue Oct 26, 2004 at 11:05:52AM -0600, Theo de Raadt wrote:
> For those of you new to this type of (shall we call it) activism,
> let me tell you something.
> 
> I think 6 years ago we asked our user community to contact Adaptec in
> the same way.  We had been requesting documentation for their scsi
> chips, and Adaptec had been giving us the round-about for over a year.
> It was going nowhere.  We asked our users to email the 30-some email
> addresses which we had attempted dialogue with over the year.  Five
> hours later I had a phone call from Adaptec asking me to stop our
> users from mailing them.  I said it was `beyond my control'.  They
> said that a few of the people were HR staff.  I said it was `beyond my
> control'.  Next day, Adaptec asked for two of our addresses.  They
> express shipped boxes containing a full compliment of cards, as well
> as documentation for all their chips.  As a result today you will find
> that Adaptec scsi support in OpenBSD is solid.
> 
> (Similar approaches with other vendors have had impact as well;
> OpenBSD -- and other systems -- are better as a result).  The QLogic
> story is similar.
> 
> In this case, we are not asking TI for documentation for their boards.
> A driver already exists.  I believe it was reverse engineered by some
> Linux people, and BSD work is in progress.  We just want to discuss
> with TI what licensing changes might be possible so that the firmware
> for their cards can be included in Open Source operating system
> releases.  Having to install a firmware file only found on a CDROM
> sold with the card after install is crazy.
> 
> These companies are huge and they shelter their internal decision
> makers; even after weeks orr months of effort it is still impossible
> for us to talk to the right people, and even then, they try to ignore
> us because they do not think our concerns are important enough.
> 
> As consumers, you can change that.  It worked before.  Worth trying,
> no?
> 
> Just tell the right TI people to come talking to me.
> 
> Thanks.

I know that you probably don't need to hear from everyone, but I wanted to let
you know that they have been contacted by me and forwarded to you.

I think this is a great thing and will hopefully produce results similar to
that stated above.

I must say there have been many times that I've wanted to send off a letter
about a closed source product but have never really known what exactly to say.
This letter from Ryan McBride is a great example and will provide a wonderful
template for future 'mass email campaigns'.  Is there a list of products that
we should send this too?  Can people post a list of products they would like
to see?  Ones in particular?  I am going to scour the archives looking for
some, then I'll contact them.

Thanks for all of your hard work.

Proud to be an OpenBSD user,

-- 
  -Asenchi
  ----------------------------------------------------------
  - ICQ: 56039913 <-> AIM: asenchi <-> PGP: 1024D/65724DA8 -
  - IRC: Asenchi irc.freenode.net #asenchi, #rweather      -
  ----------------------------------------------------------



From: Eric White [email blocked]
Subject: Re: ACX100 Firmware Licensing
Date: Tue, 26 Oct 2004 15:22:56 -0400

I am somewhat new to OpenBSD, and not
entirely sure that I agree with this tactic.  I
realize the Catch-22 nature of the situation,
but might there be a better way then 
spamming a handful of persons who potentially
have nothing to do with the product.



From: Theo de Raadt [email blocked]
Subject: Re: ACX100 Firmware Licensing 
Date: Tue, 26 Oct 2004 13:42:26 -0600

> I am somewhat new to OpenBSD, and not
> entirely sure that I agree with this tactic.  I
> realize the Catch-22 nature of the situation,
> but might there be a better way then 
> spamming a handful of persons who potentially
> have nothing to do with the product.

All of those people work in their wireless division.

After more than 10 days of mails and voicemails those people have
not redirected us to the right person.

In mails they were warned that if we were not contacted, this would
go out to the community.

Now it turns out that some members of the community are entirely
thankless for the efforts we put in to write a free operating
system, but then we are used to that.

And I mean slack jawed droolers like Eric White, apparently.

There is no Catch-22.



From: [email blocked]
Subject: TI and the community's request
Date: Tue, 26 Oct 2004 15:05:13 -0500

Hello All, specifically the developers.

The Senior Linux Technologist for TI visited the freenode openbsd channel just
now.  We spoke about the large amount of email he is receiving requesting the
opening of the firmware.

He was, obviously, upset with the tactics used and ask that we stop as no
one will receive a response due to TI's legal department looking into the
whole situation.

He seems like a guy who is working to get some of these requests met, and
would've responded earlier however was away on vacation.  I told him that I

would post to the list what he had to say as he is bound by the lawyers of TI
not to 'officially' respond.

I think some progress can still be made, but we should take into consideration
his request to stop and see what he has to say.

Just wanted to pass this on.  I hope progress can be made in this
conversation.

I don't want this to be perceived as any type of official response, just
thought it worth posting here for everyone to see.

Thanks all.

-- 
  -Asenchi
  ----------------------------------------------------------
  - ICQ: 56039913 <-> AIM: asenchi <-> PGP: 1024D/65724DA8 -
  - IRC: Asenchi irc.freenode.net #asenchi, #rweather      -
  ----------------------------------------------------------



From: Theo de Raadt [email blocked]
Subject: Re: TI and the community's request 
Date: Tue, 26 Oct 2004 13:28:38 -0600

> Hello All, specifically the developers.
> 
> The Senior Linux Technologist for TI visited the freenode openbsd channel just
> now.  We spoke about the large amount of email he is receiving requesting the
> opening of the firmware.

Then I guess he should have responded to our mails and calls over the
last week.

> He was, obviously, upset with the tactics used and ask that we stop as no
> one will receive a response due to TI's legal department looking into the
> whole situation.

Then I guess he should have responded to our mails and calls over the
last week.

> He seems like a guy who is working to get some of these requests met, and
> would've responded earlier however was away on vacation.  I told him that I
> would post to the list what he had to say as he is bound by the lawyers of TI
> not to 'officially' respond.

Well, he is more than welcome to give me a call, or respond to any of
the mails that have been sent previously.

> I think some progress can still be made, but we should take into consideration
> his request to stop and see what he has to say.

No thanks.  I urge everyone to keep prodding TI to contact me so that 
a dialogue can start.

Showing up on a channel and asking people to stop mailing... that is 
not a dialogue.



From: Lars Hansson [email blocked]
Subject: Re: TI and the community's request
Date: Wed, 27 Oct 2004 04:45:14 +0800

[email blocked] wrote:
> He was, obviously, upset with the tactics used and ask that we stop as no
> one will receive a response due to TI's legal department looking into the
> whole situation.

So, let me get this straight...
He can go to an irc channel and complain about the mail load but he cant
send a single reply email stating something like "our laywers are 
looking into it. These are the people you should really contact:
<list of email addresses>".
That's just bizarre and insanely stupid.

---
Lars Hansson



From: Theo de Raadt [email blocked]
Subject: Re: TI and the community's request 
Date: Tue, 26 Oct 2004 15:48:55 -0600

> [email blocked] wrote:
> > He was, obviously, upset with the tactics used and ask that we stop as no
> > one will receive a response due to TI's legal department looking into the
> > whole situation.
> 
> So, let me get this straight...
> He can go to an irc channel and complain about the mail load but he cant
> send a single reply email stating something like "our laywers are 
> looking into it. These are the people you should really contact:
> <list of email addresses>".
> That's just bizarre and insanely stupid.

Yup, no contact yet.

So, for now, it appears like the email addresses that the TI consumers
are using to correspond with TI are the best ones we have.

• Archive of above thread
• KernelTrap interview with Theo de Raadt