Re: kbl_guc and bxt_guc firmware missing from linux-firmware

[Jani Nikula <jani.nikula@linux.intel.com>]

On Wed, 01 Mar 2017, Seth Forshee <seth.forshee@canonical.com> wrote:
> On Wed, Mar 01, 2017 at 03:23:06PM +0200, Jani Nikula wrote:
>> On Wed, 15 Feb 2017, Seth Forshee <seth.forshee@canonical.com> wrote:
>> > Maybe it would be good to have something like MODULE_OPTIONAL_FIRMWARE
>> > to identify firmware that isn't required but will be used by the driver
>> > if available. Then mkinitramfs can try to copy those files along with
>> > the module but know that there's no need to produce a warning if it's
>> > not present.
>> 
>> The documentation for the current MODULE_FIRMWARE already says,
>> "Optional firmware file (or files) needed by the module format is simply
>> firmware file name."
>
> That may have been the intention. But since it is the only thing
> available it has been used for any firmware files, including many which
> will cause device probe to fail if not present. Userspace tools seem to
> treat the firmware files in modinfo to mean, "firmware files without
> which the hardware may fail to function or may not function properly,"
> because in many cases that is true. I'd argue that this is the de facto
> definition of MODULE_FIRMWARE, and that the comment is at best
> misleading.

Just a quick follow-up. We may choose to improve the MODULE_FIRMWARE
mechanism in the long run, but for the time being we're committed to
only adding the MODULE_FIRMWARE statements once the blobs have hit the
linux-firmware repository. For example, we'll queue a fix to v4.11-rc3
(or -rc4 at the latest) removing one such statement.

Thanks again for your feedback.

BR,
Jani.


-- 
Jani Nikula, Intel Open Source Technology Center
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