Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S1751324AbWHCUoZ (ORCPT ); Thu, 3 Aug 2006 16:44:25 -0400 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org id S1751355AbWHCUoZ (ORCPT ); Thu, 3 Aug 2006 16:44:25 -0400 Received: from outpipe-village-512-1.bc.nu ([81.2.110.250]:60373 "EHLO lxorguk.ukuu.org.uk") by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S1751324AbWHCUoX (ORCPT ); Thu, 3 Aug 2006 16:44:23 -0400 Subject: Re: A proposal - binary From: Alan Cox To: Zachary Amsden Cc: Arjan van de Ven , Linux Kernel Mailing List , Linus Torvalds , greg@kroah.com, Andrew Morton , Christoph Hellwig , Rusty Russell , Jack Lo In-Reply-To: <44D23B84.6090605@vmware.com> References: <44D1CC7D.4010600@vmware.com> <1154603822.2965.18.camel@laptopd505.fenrus.org> <44D23B84.6090605@vmware.com> Content-Type: text/plain Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Date: Thu, 03 Aug 2006 22:03:37 +0100 Message-Id: <1154639017.23655.121.camel@localhost.localdomain> Mime-Version: 1.0 X-Mailer: Evolution 2.6.2 (2.6.2-1.fc5.5) Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Content-Length: 1067 Lines: 29 Ar Iau, 2006-08-03 am 11:08 -0700, ysgrifennodd Zachary Amsden: > encourage open sourced firmware layers, instead of trying to ban drivers > which rely on firmware from the kernel. The reasons for pushing downloadable firmware out of the kernel are manyfold and based on legal advice. MORAL: Many free software people like a clean separation between the free and non-free components of a system LEGAL: Some firmware isn't publically redistributable but comes with the h/w LEGAL: Several lawyers have advised people that putting firmware separate to the kernel is different to embedding it in kernel in terms of the derivative work question. TECHNICAL: Unswappable blobs of kernel memory taken up by firmware is bad generally speaking TECHNICAL: Pulling 20Mb of unchanging firmware each kernel tree is annoying - 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/