Another suggestion that popped in my head while posting about the webcam driver is using NDISWrapper ( http://ndiswrapper.sourceforge.net/joomla/ ) instead of porting drivers from Unix systems or building haiku’s own from scratch for wireless network cards 802.11[abgn].
NDISWrapper uses Windows drivers.
There aren’t many open source drivers out there for this cards leaving NDISWrapper as the best choice for Linux so porting it to haiku will solve a compatibility issue that might drive away potential users.
Also why invest time and resources in developing haiku’s own drivers instead of investing it in the development of NDISWrapper.
Only problem with it is that some drivers come part of an .exe so Haiku needs to be able to extract those drivers out of those .exe files.
Here is where Wine comes in.
Using Wine or a part of it we can extract the necessary .sys and .inf files out of the exe.
I also like the idea of NDIS wrapper at least to get things going.
Will give greater Wifi support to the OS until native drivers can be developed.
Zeta uses NDIS wrapper and I believe this is where they got their source code for it but can’t say for sure because they kept everything secretive.
Are yuo sure that Zeta uses NDIS wrapper? Because if it does the source code has to be available so getting it and using it for haiku would be easy. Also does NDIS wrapper go under GNU GPL license , because if it is , wouldn’t it make magnussoft an open source software distributor, forcing them to release the source code for zeta?
Well, it is hard to say for sure, but I doubt that they created their NDIS wrapper from scratch.
It is very likely they modified the (Linux) one from sourceforge ( Bernd/yT was known for taking opensource projects and using them in Zeta without releasing modified source code ).
Magnussoft does not have access to the source code.
Bernd & his Zeta developers only have access to the Zeta source. And Bernd would provide Magnussoft with the final binary release for distribution.
In any case, if I’m right and they used sourceforge code, then someone else could do the same for Haiku. (ie: wouldn’t need Zeta ndis wrapper code - just get sourceforge code & modify it to work ).
But if thats true they are breaking GNU GPL license and also if thats true ZETA could be completely turned into open source software. That would bring many benefits to HAIKU.
Imagine getting an already completely finished open source BeOS.
So does ZETA actually use the name NDISWrapper.
It doesn’t mean that Zeta would have to become open source software - it only means that if Zeta didn’t remove all pieces of GPL’d code, they would be sued as such. Since I highly doubt Zeta will ever be sold/distributed again - I think it’s safe to say this will never happen.
Zeta cannot become opensource software because the code was not theirs in the first place. Please stop suggesting this is a possibility.
Breaking GPL license has not stopped people before.
The name does not matter. For instance, if I take source code from “Xmame” to make an arcade emulator and call it “Xgamer”. Well, the names will be different but the program will be the same ( and work the same ). In other words, it is easy to change the name of a program or driver.
Zeta calls it “ndis” but this proves nothing. It is easy to change the name.
Using GPL code in ndis driver would only require open sourcing the ndis driver. The rest of Zeta would stay closed source. ( Sidenote: It would seem that Zeta actually belongs to Access because it illegally uses BeOS source code ).
The best way to know if gpl code is being used is to compare source code from projects. But this is impossible with closed source projects ( like Zeta’s ndis driver ).
So, the next method is by looking at Hex code & string patterns for similarities ( using a Hex editor ). This is not exact but gives a general idea ( if the comparison is fairly close ).
Problems with this approach:
- Comparing ndis binary of Zeta vs Linux ( there are bound to be differences because of different OSes & modifications to source code to work with Zeta ).
- You would have to get a pretty good match to make your case, otherwise they could say it was just by chance that the code is kinda similar.
Also, the copyright information in the program/driver can easily be altered in the source code. So, looking for copyright info will likely find nothing.
So, first you have to prove it if denied. And then you need to force/convince Bernd/yT to give up the modified ndis source code.
It is probably just easier to have someone port over newer Ndiswrapper to Haiku using the SourceForge code.
For Zeta & GPL read the summary and comments here:
http://www.osnews.com/comment.php?news_id=11943
PS Only Access, the true owner, can opensource BeOS ( or Zeta ) but they are not interested because it would be lots of money and time to clean up the code ( remove licensed code ) and would give NO benefit to Access to do this.
That’s probably true - I forgot to mention that 
Drivers are always a point of contention though - because some people argue that the kernel links to them vs the other way around. I generally believe that drivers are loaded modules with a specific API (like an application) and thus do not necessarily represent a library of sorts.
By this definition, a GPL’d driver can generally be included with a closed-source OS as long as the source is provided.
If someone really believes that Zeta included a modified version of Ndiswrapper - they’re going to have a hell of a time actually getting the source at this point - so they should just give up.