driver question

[Jean Tourrilhes]

Prasad Venkata Boddupalli wrote :
> I just got to lay my hands on the document, "IEEE 802.11 Network Adaptor
> Design Guidelines for Windows XP". In that they talk about extended OID's
> that let us configure the card. For example, the description of
> OID_802_11_BSSID says:
> 
> ....
> Query: Returns the current AP MAC address
> Set: Sets the MAC address of the desired AP
> ....
> 
> Does it mean that Microsoft is privy to some of the firmware API's for the
> orinoco card. Or are they just placeholder's ? Can someone please throw
> more light on that.
> 
> thanks,
> Prasad.

	The Microsoft API is a clone of the Wireless Extensions (yes,
really, one of the guy who wrote it contacted me). So, it offer
similar functionality and suffer from the same limitations. Like
Wireless Extensions, the MS API offer a way to set the address of the
AP, but doesn't guarantee that the driver/card will support it.
	Now, don't get me wrong, there is a big difference between the
Linux situation and Windows. In the case of Linux, the driver is
developped by a bunch of random hackers with zero documentation and
support, while in the case of Windows the driver is written by
Lucent/Agere themselves (and *not* by MS).
	It's just confirm what David said : if you extract the proper
documentation from Lucent/Agere, then you can implement that in the
driver.

	Regards,

	Jean