[pkg-wpa-devel] Removal of madwifi driver backend support

[Kel Modderman]

Hi,

I would like to propose the removal of madwifi specific backend from
wpasupplicant package for the following reasons:

1) The use of -Dmadwifi is actively warned against by upstream Madwifi
   developers. wext should be used instead.

2) If there are bugs in wext driver backend in conjunction with madwifi, they
   should be reported, and they will be more likely to be fixed since wext is
   the preferred standard of operation for both Madwifi and
   hostap/wpa_supplicant upstream support and development personell.

3) The use of a snapshot of madwifi include files to enable private interface
   introduces ABI incompatibility when upstream Madwifi changes. There is no
   facility to ensure a stable wpa_supplicant/madwifi backend interface with
   various different versions of madwifi driver. The fact that this has not
   changed in a while is pure luck; the Madwfi project's delivery of new binary
   HAL + glue has stagnated for a long time now.

4) The madwifi include files constitute a huge part of the debian difference to
   upstream, making the package slightly more difficult to maintain.

5) NetworkManager uses "wext" as backend for, as far as I can see after
    inspecting source code, all wireless devices.

6) Compatibility code could be put into ifupdown integration to display a
   message when "wpa-driver madwifi" line was used in a /e/n/i stanza, and
   the operation could continue with wext backend.

Thanks, Kel.