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

Jeff Garzik
2005-04-05T19:32:15Z

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 distribution infrastructure is basically non-existent.
There is no standard way to make sure that a firmware separated from the
driver gets to all users.

* The firmware bundling infrastructure is basically non-existent.
(Arjan talked about this) There needs to be a a way to ensure that the
needed firmwares are automatically added to initramfs/initrd.

* There is no chicken-and-egg problem as Arjan mentions. Once the above
technical problems are resolved, its trivial to apply a firmware loading
patch. I believe in hard transitions, not shipping tg3 with firmware
-and- a firmware loading patch.

* Firmwares such as tg3 should be shipped with the kernel tarball.

In short, there are plenty of technical problems to resolve before this
is even a reasonable request. Currently, a user upgrading to a tg3 sans
firmware will simply get tg3 sans firmware.

Jeff