= Summary Info on Current Status for 802.11 Devicescape Stack =

(Slides version of this document is available as a PDF attachment:"80211dscapestack.pdf".)

== Devicescape Inc. Summary ==

 * Wi-Fi software specialist Instant80211 has renamed itself [http://www.devicescape.com/ Devicescape Software Inc.] in Feb. 2005.
 * Devicescape mainly sells Universal Wireless Platform (UWP) product which includes
   * Linux kernel
   * Devicescape wireless subsystem (a device-independent IEEE 802.11 software core)
   * An Eclipse based integrated development environment (Devicescape Studio)& command-based development environment. 
   * Wireless-specific tools for the 802.11 subsystem
   * GNU toolchain
   * Build scripts and makefiles
 * UWP supports Atheros (AR5213), Broadcom (BCM4306/4309/4320), Conexant radios.


== Architecture Diagram for Devicescape Inc. UWP ==

[[Image(uwparchitecture.jpg)]]


== Summary on Linux 802.11 stack situation ==

 * There exists a wireless-2.6 tree on [http://kernel.org http://kernel.org] maintained by John Linville. Upcoming in-kernel stack/drivers will be pushed upwards (to Linus) via this tree.
 * There are two candidate stacks on the tree: 
   * [http://softmac.sipsolutions.net/ softmac stack]: based on the current ieee80211 stack in the kernel with improvements+recent patches.
   * devicescape (a.k.a dscape, or d80211) stack: is another stack written and recently GPL'ed by Devicescape Inc. 
 * Although devicescape has some advantages in functionality (like full WPA support), softmac is likely to be merged into upstream due to some issues in stability, compatibility etc.
 * Both stacks seem to stay under concurrent development (at least for a while)

== Functions Supported at d80211 stack ==

 * Obvious Functions : various send/receive and their lower/higer layer interfaces etc.
 * BSS join/scan
 * 802.11e/WMM parameter set handling, and  packet->queue classification
 * (De)authentication
 * Encryption (wep, wpa, tkip/aes)
 * IBSS create/find/join/merge
 * Basic stat/info dump to /proc
 * A simple rate control algorithm
 * Interface for HostAPd

Devicescape stack is accessible from [http://kernel.org/git http://kernel.org/git] as a git project named 'wireless-dev'.