Broadcom has released open source Linux Wifi 802.11n drivers

In a welcoming step, Broadcom finally released the the source code of its wifi (802.11n) Linux drivers under open source license. The source code can be found on the Linux staging-next tree at git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/gregkh/staging-next-2.6.git in the in the drivers/staging/brcm80211 directory. The open source drivers will support current chips (BCM4313,BCM43224, BCM43225) and it also acts as a framework to support future chips by Broadcom.

This can be considered as a significant move made by the company, as Broadcom chips are widely in use on laptops and netbooks in the market. Its competitor, Atheros, has already open sourced its drivers back in 2008, which in turn, made Atheros drivers much better supported on various operating system platform compared to Broadcom.

Previously, Linux users with Broadcom chip, have to rely on NDISwrapper utilities to enable the wifi functionality on their laptops.

[source][via]