Re: non-free firmware in kernel modules, aggregation and unclear copyright notice.

[Brian Gerst <bgerst@didntduck.org>]

Jeff Garzik wrote:
> Brian Gerst wrote:
>
> > Jeff Garzik wrote:
> >
> > > 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 interface should only be concerned with getting the blob 
> > of data into kernel space.  Once it is in kernel space the driver can 
> > parse out whatever archive format it is in.  Take for example the ihex 
> > code that was posted recently.  Similar code could be written to parse 
> > out a tarball, cpio archive, etc.
>
>
> The archive format for firmware data collections must be standardized, 
> and generic code for loading such collections needs to be written, not 
> duplicated into each driver.

I never said code shouldn't be standardized or shared.  I just said that 
it is a seperate function from the process of transferring the data from 
userspace to kernel space.  That said, initramfs already uses cpio, so 
that would be a good choice to use.

--
				Brian Gerst
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