GNU/Linux users may celebrate this bit of information. Broadcom is releasing a fully-open Linux driver for it's latest generation of 11n chipsets.
 
Every-time a Gnu/Linux user go to buy a laptop he/she makes sure that the wireless chit is not from Broadcom, as the company did not have any support for Gnu/Linux platform. Users had to rely on ndiswrapper or some cutter to install support for the driver.

Distros like Ubuntu make this herculean task easier for users by offering a one-click install. On the contrary under Windows you you need to get the drivers and install them, on top of some 20GB or unknown files encroaching your hard-drive.

Linux now has an edge over Windows. The credit goes to Broadcom and never-rest Gnu/Linux community. Henry Ptasinski of Broadcom further wrote on a mailing list: “The driver, while still a work in progress, is released as full source and uses the native mac80211 stack.   It supports multiple current chips (BCM4313, BCM43224, BCM43225) as well as providing a framework for supporting additional chips in the future, including mac80211-aware embedded chips.”

The Broadcom support page states: These packages contain Broadcom's IEEE 802.11a/b/g/n hybrid Linux device driver for use with Broadcom's BCM4311-, BCM4312-, BCM4313-, BCM4321-, and BCM4322-based hardware. There are different tars for 32-bit and 64-bit x86 CPU architectures. Make sure that you download the appropriate tar because the hybrid binary file must be of the appropriate architecture type. The hybrid binary file is agnostic to the specific version of the Linux kernel because it is designed to perform all interactions with the operating system through operating-system-specific files and an operating system abstraction layer file. All Linux operating-system-specific code is provided in source form, making it possible to retarget to different kernel versions and fix operating system related issues.

Page 2: Licence and download links.{C}

The drivers have been released under Broadcom's own licensing terms. Some major points include:

2.1. License Grants.  Subject to the terms and conditions of this Agreement, Broadcom hereby grants to Licensee a non-exclusive, non-transferable, royalty-free license (i) to use and integrate the Software in conjunction with any other software; and (ii) to reproduce and distribute the Software complete, unmodified and only for use with a Broadcom Product.

2.2. Restriction on Modification.  If and to the extent that the Software is designed to be compliant with any published communications standard (including, without limitation, DOCSIS, HomePNA, IEEE, and ITU standards), Licensee may not make any modifications to the Software that would cause the Software or the accompanying Broadcom Products to be incompatible with such standard.

2.3. Restriction on Distribution.  Licensee shall only distribute the Software (a) under the terms of this Agreement and a copy of this Agreement accompanies such distribution, and (b) agrees to defend and indemnify Broadcom and its licensors from and against any damages, costs, liabilities, settlement amounts and/or expenses (including attorneys' fees) incurred in connection with any claim, lawsuit or action by any third party that arises or results from the use or distribution of any and all Software by the Licensee except as contemplated herein.

2.4. Proprietary Notices.  Licensee shall not remove, efface or obscure any copyright or trademark notices from the Software.  Licensee shall include reproductions of the Broadcom copyright notice with each copy of the Software, except where such Software is embedded in a manner not readily accessible to the end user.  Licensee acknowledges that any symbols, trademarks, tradenames, and service marks adopted by Broadcom to identify the Software belong to Broadcom and that Licensee shall have no rights therein.

You can download 32-bit and 64-bit drivers by clicking on the links.

Gnu/Linux users can say: 'Thank you Broadcom.' What do you think?