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

[Jeff Garzik <jgarzik@pobox.com>]

Christoph Hellwig wrote:
> On Tue, Apr 05, 2005 at 11:28:07AM +0200, Arjan van de Ven wrote:
>>One of the sticking points will be how people get the firmware; I can
>>see the point of a kernel-distributable-firmware project related to the
>>kernel (say on kernel.org) which would provide a nice collection of
>>distributable firmwares (and is appropriately licensed). Without such
>>joint infrastructure things will always be a mess and in that context I
>>can see the point of the driver authors not immediately wanting to
>>switch exclusively. Simply because they'll get swamped with email about
>>how the driver doesn't work...
> 
> 
> I agree.  And that really doesn't need a lot of infrastructure,
> basically just a tarball that unpacks to /lib/firmware, maybe a specfile
> and debian/ dir in addition.


At the moment there is -zero- infrastructure that would allow my tg3 to 
continue working, when I upgrade to a tg3 driver with external firmware.

The user has to put a file in some location manually.

That's a complete non-starter, from a usability standpoint.

Further, several firmwares, including tg3, are really a collection of 
bits of information:  .text, .bss, and random variables (start addr, 
image size, ...).  The current interface is complete crap for this sort 
of setup.

The firmware loader really needs to be loading -archives- not individual 
files.

We are a -long- way from moving the firmware out of the tg3 source code.

	Jeff