I agree that there are two seperate issues here. Prism cards, I use a Netgear WG511, require a firmware file. Netgear packed it with the installer for windows, and so put it in a .cab file that makes opening it directly with Linux difficult. Add to that the reluctance of the companies to release the firmware files, as they only license the chip design, and it makes isntallation difficult.

As for the closed source Atheros drivers, I didn't have a problem with that going with a chipset with an third party open source driver. WPA is still in the works, but it's included in the 2.6.5 linux kernel.

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