Contents

  1. What is the WiMAX kernel stack?
  2. What is the WiMAX Network Service?
  3. Where can I find the WiMAX Network API to develop a connection manager or add WiMAX support to an existing one?
  4. Licensing questions
    1. What are the licensing terms of all this?
    2. Why are some driver files BSD-only?
    3. Is the Intel Free Distribution Binary License an open source license?
    4. Why don't you allow modification and re-engineering of the binaries?
    5. The Intel Free Distribution Binary License looks like a BSD license. Is it?
    6. I am a package maintainer and I would like to create a package/distribution/CD that installs/provides the Intel firmware necessary for the 2400M. How does one go about doing this according to Intel's terms?
    7. There are a lot of people downstream who draw from my package/distribution/CD. What do they have to do to be compliant with the Intel Free Distribution Binary License binary license?
    8. There is a patent license in the Intel Free Distribution Binary License. What does that mean?
    9. Here's a special case. I am a BSD developer, and other people might take my code, relicense it, and use it in a proprietary operating system. Do they get a patent license, too?
    10. Isn't that risky for them?

What is the WiMAX kernel stack?

The WiMAX stack is a generic layer that provides a uniform API to control different WiMAX devices.

What is the WiMAX Network Service?

This is an user space component providing network detection and selection functionality. It implements the bulk of link control logic in order to support connection utilities and management applications. Future revisions will implement over-the-air activation and provisioning functionality.

Where can I find the WiMAX Network API to develop a connection manager or add WiMAX support to an existing one?

Please refer to the WiMaxAPI.h and related headers in the source folder WiMAX-Network-Service/tools_projects/Pipe/Wrappers/CommonAPI/Source. The Connection Utility, under WiMAX-Network-Service/tools_projects/Pipe/Wrappers/iWmxSDK/WimaxUtility, provides a reference implementation using the WiMAX APIs.

Licensing questions

What are the licensing terms of all this?

Here is the list:

Why are some driver files BSD-only?

As a convenience for driver developers for other open source operating systems. This way they can take those files to implement support. These files implement hardware specific functionality, algorithms, etc.

Is the Intel Free Distribution Binary License an open source license?

No. The Intel Free Distribution Binary License is "free as in beer" and allows unlimited, no-cost redistribution of the binaries, but not "free as in freedom" since modification and reverse engineering are not allowed.

Why don't you allow modification and re-engineering of the binaries?

To operate a radio device, the hardware/firmware combination needs to be FCC (and equivalent in other countries) certified; this excludes end user modification which would void the certification.

The Intel Free Distribution Binary License looks like a BSD license. Is it?

It looks a lot like a BSD license. We reused as much language as we could. We believe BSD was a good starting point for a short, easy to understand, permissive license. However, the Intel Free Distribution Binary License is in no way an open source license (see previous question.)

I am a package maintainer and I would like to create a package/distribution/CD that installs/provides the Intel firmware necessary for the 2400M. How does one go about doing this according to Intel's terms?

You distribute the Intel Free Distribution Binary License with the binary blob.

There are a lot of people downstream who draw from my package/distribution/CD. What do they have to do to be compliant with the Intel Free Distribution Binary License binary license?

They have to distribute the Intel Free Distribution Binary License with the binary blob.

There is a patent license in the Intel Free Distribution Binary License. What does that mean?

Necessary Intel patents needed to use the binaries are licensed royalty-free for use with any operating system licensed under an Open Source Initiative-approved open source license. That includes, by way of example, (not an exhaustive list), all Linux distributions, all BSD distributions, the GNU Hurd, and Open Solaris.

Here's a special case. I am a BSD developer, and other people might take my code, relicense it, and use it in a proprietary operating system. Do they get a patent license, too?

No, they do not get such a license.

Isn't that risky for them?

The standard BSD license does not include an explicit patent license for any technology. The Intel Free Distribution Binary License adds an explicit grant for specific usage to reduce the patent risk for those usage cases; other cases have no extra risk compared to the standard BSD license.