Return-path: Received: from smtp2.linux-foundation.org ([207.189.120.14]:34351 "EHLO smtp2.linux-foundation.org" rhost-flags-OK-OK-OK-OK) by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S1755056AbYAYV4k (ORCPT ); Fri, 25 Jan 2008 16:56:40 -0500 Date: Fri, 25 Jan 2008 13:54:31 -0800 (PST) From: Linus Torvalds To: Michael Buesch cc: Inaky Perez-Gonzalez , Johannes Berg , "John W. Linville" , linux-wireless@vger.kernel.org Subject: Re: Linux 2.6.24-rc7 In-Reply-To: <200801252221.07558.mb@bu3sch.de> Message-ID: (sfid-20080125_215647_625021_E5938D4D) References: <200801251941.25310.mb@bu3sch.de> <200801251311.45392.inaky@linux.intel.com> <200801252221.07558.mb@bu3sch.de> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: linux-wireless-owner@vger.kernel.org List-ID: On Fri, 25 Jan 2008, Michael Buesch wrote: > > Well, you forgot the point that maybe it is not that simple to get such > > a seemingly simple change into the firmware for a long list of reasons. > > The reasons being? .. the reason being that people just expect existing firmware to work, for example. The point being, even if a newer firmware was _available_, people wouldn't necessarily run with it. We do *not* accept "upgrade the BIOS" as an answer to broken BIOSes either. We work around BIOS limitations. There can easily be other issues too. The DMA engine literally might only do word-aligned transfers. Or other operating systems have different rules from Linux, and the firmware is designed for those other systems. Realistically, if it works with Windows, and I was a hardware team, and the Linux people were whining about it, I'd feel perfectly fine in saying "you're the buggy ones, we work fine". So no, whining about hardware or firmware features isn't really very productive. You take what you get. Linus