Re: carl9170 firmware

[Larry Finger <Larry.Finger@lwfinger.net>]

On 04/18/2012 01:26 PM, Christian Lamparter wrote:
> On Tuesday, April 17, 2012 09:27:53 PM Larry Finger wrote:
>> On 04/17/2012 01:35 PM, Christian Lamparter wrote:
>>> On Tuesday, April 17, 2012 07:25:25 PM Larry Finger wrote:
>>>> A question regarding adding carl9170-1.fw to the openSUSE firmware package is
>>>> being discussed on the oS kernel mailing list; however, I do not see that one
>>>> in the linux-firmware git repo. Should it be there?
>>> Does the repo take source code releases? [much like the work we do for the
>>> kernel driver, or have you ever seen a binary release on this ML :D ]. The
>>> files on<http://wireless.kernel.org/en/users/Drivers/carl9170#Firmware_binary>
>>> are just for convenience.
>>
>> AFAIK, the repo only takes binary files. With the source under GPL2, that should
>> not be a problem; however, the fact that there are two versions with the same
>> name would be trouble. Adding under that name has the possibility of breaking
>> all the systems that use the other version.
> I think I would need to read the opensuse ML discussion first to know why this
> is a "big" deal suddenly. (do you have a link?)
>
> On the other hand: I don't like the idea of supporting "old"&  "new" firmwares.
> Usually they get mixed up and then you end up with "new" reports for
> "old" bugs. In fact, p54 users' complain about that alot.

If the filename that the driver requests is changed, that should reduce the 
complaints. I would think that the current setup with two different, 
incompatible versions having the same name would be trouble.

The thread is at http://lists.opensuse.org/opensuse-kernel/2012-04/msg00040.html.

Larry