Re: [GIT *] Allow request_firmware() to be satisfied from in-kernel, use it in more drivers.

Linus Torvalds
2008-07-15T17:08:48Z

On Tue, 15 Jul 2008, Frans Pop wrote:
>
> Of course, but the main reason I replied in the first place was because
> your "there are no real problems" attitude in this discussion was
> annoying me.

I really don't think there are any real problems.

The problems are all due to inertia - people (and scripts) are used to one
way of doing things. Those aren't really technical issues, and more
importantly, they are not issues that _can_ be solved any other way than
just doing it, and fixing the fallout.

Trying to be "proactive" doesn't work. Waiting for people (and scripts) to
get used to a new model before merging it also doesn't work. And
complaining about a change that pretty obviously is needed also doesn't
work.

So let's just do it. And then, when specific scripts are encountered, fix
them. And yes, fixing the scripts may _well_ imply adding more support for
it in the kernel. It could be either in build and installation scripts, or
in udev infrastructure, or in request_firmware() capability itself.

For example, some people hate udev, and they may have some really good
reason why they really don't want to rely on that in their setup. So maybe
we should teach request_firmware() to try to look up (binary) firmware
files directly from the filesystem before it does a udev callback (in
fact, maybe it even already does - I really didn't check very closely).

None of these are "problems".

But people who don't even want to look for solutions - _that_ is a
problem.

Linus