“AbsoluteValue Software, Inc. is a software-development
services company specializing in embedded and wireless systems.
Mark and Jo-Ellen Mathews, the owners of the company, are the
creators and maintainers of the Linux Wireless Local Area Network
(WLAN) project that began in December 1996.”
“According to the Mathews, the Linux WLAN project currently
includes:
- A standards-compliant Linux device driver for IEEE 802.11
wireless network cards containing the Harris PRISM radio
chipset - User-mode utility software that interacts with the device
driver — for example, scanning for existing networks, choosing
what network to join, and selecting radio channel”
“While a wireless LAN could exist as a sole, general-purpose LAN,
wireless LANs are more often seen as an extension to an existing
LAN as a means to support mobile users. A wireless LAN is not a
metropolitan area network or a wide area network. Unlike those two
technologies, wireless LANs have short ranges on the order of
meters as opposed to miles.”