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

Arjan van de Ven
2005-04-05T12:15:23Z

> > 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.

but unless we allow the driver to use such things, such infrastructure
won't come into existence either. It's a chicken-and-egg situation...
except that we can for a while make tg3 and others be both the chicken
and egg until the real chicken is there.

> 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.

Yet that is no excuse to not at least start addressing the issues. What
you just listed are deficiencies in the kernel infrastructure, not doing
something because we have slightly suboptimal infrastructure isn't the
right thing.