Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S261946AbVDETcP (ORCPT ); Tue, 5 Apr 2005 15:32:15 -0400 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org id S261945AbVDET3U (ORCPT ); Tue, 5 Apr 2005 15:29:20 -0400 Received: from parcelfarce.linux.theplanet.co.uk ([195.92.249.252]:30122 "EHLO parcelfarce.linux.theplanet.co.uk") by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S261738AbVDET20 (ORCPT ); Tue, 5 Apr 2005 15:28:26 -0400 Message-ID: <4252E6C1.5010701@pobox.com> Date: Tue, 05 Apr 2005 15:28:01 -0400 From: Jeff Garzik User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-US; rv:1.7.6) Gecko/20050328 Fedora/1.7.6-1.2.5 X-Accept-Language: en-us, en MIME-Version: 1.0 To: Josselin Mouette CC: debian-legal@lists.debian.org, debian-kernel@lists.debian.org, linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org, Arjan van de Ven , Christoph Hellwig Subject: Re: non-free firmware in kernel modules, aggregation and unclear copyright notice. References: <4252A821.9030506@almg.gov.br> <1112723637.4878.14.camel@mirchusko.localnet> In-Reply-To: <1112723637.4878.14.camel@mirchusko.localnet> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Content-Length: 2009 Lines: 48 Josselin Mouette wrote: > Finally, you shouldn't forget that, technically speaking, using hotplug > for uploading the firmware is much more flexible and elegant than > including it in the kernel. Upgrading the firmware and the module should > be two independent operations. People who are advocating the current > situation are refusing technical improvements just because they are > brought by people they find convenient to call "zealots". This is highly amusing, coming from someone who does not maintain a driver with a firmware. The current firmware infrastructure is too primitive. Compiling the firmware into the driver is much easier on the driver maintainers and users, presently. Repeating myself, * Most firmwares are a -collection- of images and data. The firmware infrastructure should load an -archive- of firmwares and associated data values. * The firmware distribution infrastructure is basically non-existent. There is no standard way to make sure that a firmware separated from the driver gets to all users. * The firmware bundling infrastructure is basically non-existent. (Arjan talked about this) There needs to be a a way to ensure that the needed firmwares are automatically added to initramfs/initrd. * There is no chicken-and-egg problem as Arjan mentions. Once the above technical problems are resolved, its trivial to apply a firmware loading patch. I believe in hard transitions, not shipping tg3 with firmware -and- a firmware loading patch. * Firmwares such as tg3 should be shipped with the kernel tarball. In short, there are plenty of technical problems to resolve before this is even a reasonable request. Currently, a user upgrading to a tg3 sans firmware will simply get tg3 sans firmware. Jeff - 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/