From: Ben Hutchings <ben@decadent.org.uk>
To: David Miller <davem@davemloft.net>
Cc: romieu@fr.zoreil.com, netdev@vger.kernel.org, edward_hsu@realtek.com.tw
Subject: Re: [PATCH] r8169: partial support and phy init for the 8168d
Date: Mon, 2 Nov 2009 19:06:18 +0000 [thread overview]
Message-ID: <20091102190618.GM4236@decadent.org.uk> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <20091101.224645.262714217.davem@davemloft.net>
On Sun, Nov 01, 2009 at 10:46:45PM -0800, David Miller wrote:
> From: Ben Hutchings <ben@decadent.org.uk>
> Date: Sun, 01 Nov 2009 16:24:43 +0000
>
> > I believe this is patching machine code in the PHY. And we do not have
> > source for that code, so it cannot possibly be distributed under GPL.
>
> You don't know if it's machine code or some data values that
> are used to control the PHY's execution.
No, I don't know that this is machine code. But you are setting up
a false opposition: 'data values that are used to control the PHY's
execution' certainly include the machine code that it executes.
> In fact I would really be surprised if they had some cpu interpeting
> code in the 8168d PHY.
Your knowledge of PHYs may be outdated. 1000BASE-T has to be done
with a mixture of analog and digital signal processing, since analog
alone would be too power-hungry. While autonegotiation and power
management could be hardwired it's less risky to put in a micro-
controller and finalise the firmware after the silicon... or even
after release, as seems to have happened here.
> You did do some research about that before making such accusations
> right? :-)
I began with 'I believe'. It's not an accusation.
Ben.
--
Ben Hutchings
Sturgeon's Law: Ninety percent of everything is crap.
next prev parent reply other threads:[~2009-11-02 19:06 UTC|newest]
Thread overview: 8+ messages / expand[flat|nested] mbox.gz Atom feed top
2009-10-07 22:44 [PATCH] r8169: partial support and phy init for the 8168d Francois Romieu
2009-10-13 17:49 ` Francois Romieu
2009-10-13 18:56 ` David Miller
2009-10-13 19:01 ` David Miller
2009-11-01 16:24 ` Ben Hutchings
2009-11-02 6:46 ` David Miller
2009-11-02 19:06 ` Ben Hutchings [this message]
2009-11-03 8:01 ` François romieu
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