make command does not work - Assembler messages

$ make KBUILD_NOPEDANTIC=1 make -C /lib/modules/`uname -r`/build M=`pwd` 
make[1]: Entering directory `/usr/src/linux-headers-2.6.38-8-generic'   CC [M]  /home/user1/src/wl/sys/wl_linux.o 
Assembler messages: Fatal error: can't create /home/user1/src/wl/sys/.tmp_wl_linux.o: Permission denied /home/user1/src/wl/sys/wl_linux.c: In function ‘wl_attach’: /home/user1/src/wl/sys/wl_linux.c:485:3: error: implicit declaration of function ‘init_MUTEX’ 
make[2]: *** [/home/user1/src/wl/sys/wl_linux.o] Error 2 
make[1]: *** [_module_/home/user1] Error 2 
make[1]: Leaving directory `/usr/src/linux-headers-2.6.38-8-generic' 
make: *** [all] Error 2

What does this mean and how can I fix it?

Thank you fossfreedom. I tried what you suggested: this is the result:

user1@ubuntu:~/src/wl/sys$ sudo chown -r user1:user1 * 
chown: invalid option -- 'r' Trychown --help' for more information.

(My Ubuntu version is 11.04)

I tried chown --help, and I found that -R is correct, and I learned -f suffix.

BUT the make command still does not work and result is same as I wrote.

The permission denied message could be that at some point you ran make as root

e.g.

sudo make

try

cd /home/user1/src/wl/sys

pwd

sudo chown -R user1:user1 *

The MUTEX error could be due to the initial permissions issue. Fix that first, recompile and see if the error still occurs.

IMPORTANT: the pwd command should display "/home/user1/src/wl/sys" i.e. that you have correctly navigated to that subfolder

the chown -r command will change all permissions in that folder and all sub folders to the user1 user (and his group)