Re: [PATCH] drm/i915/dmc: Accept symbolic link in firmware name

Jani Nikula
2016-08-01T13:24:52Z

On Wed, 20 Jul 2016, "Vivi, Rodrigo" <rodrigo.vivi@intel.com> wrote:
> We don't hardcode all userspace libraries in the userspace side for
> the graphics stack and we do not validate all possible combinations of
> libdrm, mesa, ddx, libva, etc... Why should we need this with
> firmware?

Because the firmware blob is more like a binary kernel module that works
with a specific kernel version than an open source userspace component
written on top of a stable ABI.

You do not know what the firmware does, nor what the future versions of
it will do. The kernel provides an ABI with a strict no regressions
policy for its users. The firmware has no such guarantees, and it is
expected to go hand in hand with the operating system versions it has
been validated against. And as I've explained numerous times, we do not
have the resources to validate all kernel releases against all firmware
releases.

BR,
Jani.

--
Jani Nikula, Intel Open Source Technology Center