Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S1756774AbYGFOvU (ORCPT ); Sun, 6 Jul 2008 10:51:20 -0400 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org id S1756905AbYGFOvI (ORCPT ); Sun, 6 Jul 2008 10:51:08 -0400 Received: from bombadil.infradead.org ([18.85.46.34]:48815 "EHLO bombadil.infradead.org" rhost-flags-OK-OK-OK-OK) by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S1757090AbYGFOvH (ORCPT ); Sun, 6 Jul 2008 10:51:07 -0400 Subject: Re: [linux-dvb] [PATCH] Remove fdump tool for av7110 firmware From: David Woodhouse To: Devin Heitmueller Cc: Klaus Schmidinger , kernelnewbies , kernel-janitors , LKML , Jaswinder Singh , linux-dvb@linuxtv.org, Alan Cox In-Reply-To: <412bdbff0807060729o639f98b1s383d146856feb6da@mail.gmail.com> References: <1214139259.2994.8.camel@jaswinder.satnam> <200807060315.51736@orion.escape-edv.de> <48708BBF.9050400@cadsoft.de> <1215343022.10393.945.camel@pmac.infradead.org> <412bdbff0807060729o639f98b1s383d146856feb6da@mail.gmail.com> Content-Type: text/plain Date: Sun, 06 Jul 2008 15:48:02 +0100 Message-Id: <1215355682.3189.101.camel@shinybook.infradead.org> Mime-Version: 1.0 X-Mailer: Evolution 2.22.2 (2.22.2-2.fc9) Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-SRS-Rewrite: SMTP reverse-path rewritten from by bombadil.infradead.org See http://www.infradead.org/rpr.html Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org List-ID: X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Content-Length: 1323 Lines: 29 On Sun, 2008-07-06 at 10:29 -0400, Devin Heitmueller wrote: > Correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't this also affect those > distributions that consider kernels with binary firmware blobs to not > be free software? Those distributions take the stance that the > firmware must be loadable by userland, in which case the proposed > patch removes this capability. No, it doesn't remove that capability. We're just observing that the trick which fdump.c uses to turn firmware into a hex array in C source is obsoleted by the generic ability to include firmware blobs into the kernel using CONFIG_EXTRA_FIRMWARE. If we just use the generic method, then the conditional code in the driver can go away, as can the fdump tool. Yes, that does mean that it's either in the _kernel_ or in userspace, rather than being in the .ko file -- but if you want modularity and are already depending on having a functional userspace, it doesn't seem to make a lot of sense to have this reimplementation of generic functionality, just so that you can keep the two parts in _one_ file. -- dwmw2 -- 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/