Re: [OE-core][PATCH v2] linux-firmware: Move all firmware into sub-packages

Ryan Eatmon
2025-10-09T15:00:57Z

On 10/9/2025 9:23 AM, Ross Burton wrote:
> On 7 Oct 2025, at 16:46, Ryan Eatmon via lists.openembedded.org <reatmon=ti.com@lists.openembedded.org> wrote:
>>
>> A lot of the firmware has already been broken out into sub-packages, but
>> a good number were still lingering in the base linux-firmware package.
>>
>> This patch does two things:
>>
>> 1) Move all of the remaining firmware into sub-packages based on the
>> driver name in the WHENCE file or into existing sub-packages where a
>> file or two were missed.
>>
>> 2) Create a new REMOVE_UNLICENSED variable and do_install() logic to
>> allow for marking certain firmware files as something to remove and not
>> package up. The intention is that in the WHENCE file, a number of
>> firmware files have no license information or very questionable
>> declarations as to what the license is for the firmware.
>
> I’m tempted to ask for (1) and (2) to be split into separate patches, but importantly this empties PN but doesn’t set ALLOW_EMPTY, so the meta-package to let you install all the firmware no longer exists.
>
> Can you set ALLOW_EMPTY:${PN} = “1” so that linux-firmware is still built (albeit empty).

Sure. I'll split this into three patches.

1) Bin everything (with a license).
2) Add the remove logic for the remaining unlicensed code, and set
ALLOW_EMPTY.
3) Set FILES:${PN}="" with comment to make it clear what the new policy is.

Just to make it super clear what each patch is doing.

> Ross

--
Ryan Eatmon reatmon@ti.com
-----------------------------------------
Texas Instruments, Inc. - LCPD - MGTS