Published at LXer:

The ath5k driver has been through more than the usual amount of legal trouble. This driver, for Atheros wireless chipsets, was originally reverse engineered and developed in the BSD community. It was reputed by some to have been improperly copied from proprietary Atheros code, requiring two different studies by the Software Freedom Legal Center before Linux developers were willing to believe that it was safe to use. This driver should be the cause of great joy - it will make it possible for vast numbers of laptop owners to run Linux with free drivers for the first time. But, first, there would appear to be one more set of legal hassles to overcome.

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