Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S261662AbVDEJet (ORCPT ); Tue, 5 Apr 2005 05:34:49 -0400 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org id S261628AbVDEJch (ORCPT ); Tue, 5 Apr 2005 05:32:37 -0400 Received: from pentafluge.infradead.org ([213.146.154.40]:38878 "EHLO pentafluge.infradead.org") by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S261652AbVDEJ2Y (ORCPT ); Tue, 5 Apr 2005 05:28:24 -0400 Subject: Re: non-free firmware in kernel modules, aggregation and unclear copyright notice. From: Arjan van de Ven To: Christoph Hellwig Cc: Ian Campbell , Sven Luther , "Theodore Ts'o" , Greg KH , Michael Poole , debian-legal@lists.debian.org, debian-kernel@lists.debian.org, linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org In-Reply-To: <20050405091144.GA18219@lst.de> References: <20050404141647.GA28649@pegasos> <20050404175130.GA11257@kroah.com> <20050404182753.GC31055@pegasos> <20050404191745.GB12141@kroah.com> <20050404192945.GB1829@pegasos> <20050404205527.GB8619@thunk.org> <20050404211931.GB3421@pegasos> <1112689164.3086.100.camel@icampbell-debian> <20050405083217.GA22724@pegasos> <1112690965.3086.107.camel@icampbell-debian> <20050405091144.GA18219@lst.de> Content-Type: text/plain Date: Tue, 05 Apr 2005 11:28:07 +0200 Message-Id: <1112693287.6275.30.camel@laptopd505.fenrus.org> Mime-Version: 1.0 X-Mailer: Evolution 2.0.4 (2.0.4-2) Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Spam-Score: 3.7 (+++) X-Spam-Report: SpamAssassin version 2.63 on pentafluge.infradead.org summary: Content analysis details: (3.7 points, 5.0 required) pts rule name description ---- ---------------------- -------------------------------------------------- 1.1 RCVD_IN_DSBL RBL: Received via a relay in list.dsbl.org [] 2.5 RCVD_IN_DYNABLOCK RBL: Sent directly from dynamic IP address [80.57.133.107 listed in dnsbl.sorbs.net] 0.1 RCVD_IN_SORBS RBL: SORBS: sender is listed in SORBS [80.57.133.107 listed in dnsbl.sorbs.net] X-SRS-Rewrite: SMTP reverse-path rewritten from by pentafluge.infradead.org See http://www.infradead.org/rpr.html Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Content-Length: 1597 Lines: 30 On Tue, 2005-04-05 at 11:11 +0200, Christoph Hellwig wrote: > On Tue, Apr 05, 2005 at 09:49:25AM +0100, Ian Campbell wrote: > > I don't think you did get a rejection, a few people said that _they_ > > weren't going to do it, but if you want to then go ahead. I think people > > are just fed up of people bringing up the issue and then failing to do > > anything about it -- so prove them wrong ;-) > > Actually patches to add firmware loader support to tg3 got rejected. I think they will be accepted if they first introduce a transition period where tg3 will do request_firmware() and only use the built-in firmware if that fails. Second step is to make the built-in firmware a config option and then later on when the infrastructure matures for firmware loading/providing firmware it can be removed from the driver entirely. One of the sticking points will be how people get the firmware; I can see the point of a kernel-distributable-firmware project related to the kernel (say on kernel.org) which would provide a nice collection of distributable firmwares (and is appropriately licensed). Without such joint infrastructure things will always be a mess and in that context I can see the point of the driver authors not immediately wanting to switch exclusively. Simply because they'll get swamped with email about how the driver doesn't work... - To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in the body of a message to majordomo@vger.kernel.org More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html Please read the FAQ at http://www.tux.org/lkml/