Return-path: Received: from mail-iw0-f180.google.com ([209.85.223.180]:50648 "EHLO mail-iw0-f180.google.com" rhost-flags-OK-OK-OK-OK) by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S1753497AbZI1XFY convert rfc822-to-8bit (ORCPT ); Mon, 28 Sep 2009 19:05:24 -0400 Received: by iwn10 with SMTP id 10so2764741iwn.4 for ; Mon, 28 Sep 2009 16:05:28 -0700 (PDT) MIME-Version: 1.0 In-Reply-To: <1254177211.21847.15.camel@mj> References: <43e72e890909281517k23abaf8dvd3e84837ce307429@mail.gmail.com> <1254177211.21847.15.camel@mj> From: "Luis R. Rodriguez" Date: Mon, 28 Sep 2009 16:05:08 -0700 Message-ID: <43e72e890909281605t679cb207x98819949e27b1f6d@mail.gmail.com> Subject: Re: Firmware versioning best practices To: Pavel Roskin Cc: linux-wireless , reinette chatre , Kalle Valo , Johannes Berg , Christian Lamparter , Bob Copeland Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8 Sender: linux-wireless-owner@vger.kernel.org List-ID: On Mon, Sep 28, 2009 at 3:33 PM, Pavel Roskin wrote: > On Mon, 2009-09-28 at 15:17 -0700, Luis R. Rodriguez wrote: >> The ath_hif_usb driver will require the ar9271 firmware file but in >> the future an open firmware might become available. The ar9170 driver >> already is under the same situation already: a closed firmware is >> available but an open firmware can be used, only thing is ar9170 uses >> the same firmware name for both. We *could* change ar9170 to use the >> Intel practice of tagging a version at the end of each firmware >> release, like ar9170-1.fw but ar9170 originally was implemented with a >> 2-stage firmware requirement and so ar9170-1.fw is already taken. > > Versions don't have to start with 1.  We could start e.g. with 10. Point taken. >> ar9170 still needs a solution for the different firmwares, once we >> start supporting the open firmware through some sort of release but >> I'd like to address ath_hif_usb now early so that we don't run into >> these snags and use some decent convention that is easy to follow. > > We could use ar9170-apiversion-codeverestion.fw and link it to > ar9170-apiversion.fw.  That is, if the open firmware version is 0.9.0 > and it was compiled for API version 12, the filename would be > ar9170-12-0.9.0.fw and it could be linked to ar9170-12.fw. Nice, I like this convention. >> As I noted above, Intel seems to use the device-1.fw, device-2.fw >> naming convention. Is this the best approach? Or shall we have the >> same firmware filename and simply query the firmware for a map of >> capabilities? Any other ideas? > > Distinctive names are good for simplicity of administration and the > capabilities are good for the sanity of the driver.  But I don't see why > we cannot have both. OK sure, thanks for the feedback, at least now I know what naming scheme to use. The bitmap stuff will have to come later through some sort of open firmware as I am not sure if we have this with the closed one. Luis