Messages in this thread | | | Date | Mon, 7 Jul 2008 22:19:50 +0100 | From | Alan Cox <> | Subject | Re: [PATCH] bnx2 - use request_firmware() |
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> Who in the world is going to actually want request_firmware() to find > a firmware image other than the one which has been properly tested > together with the driver by the driver maintainer?
That misses the point, intentionally I am sure. In the majority of cases the firmware doesn't change between releases so shipping a billion copies of is a pain in the butt.
> What "use case" is there other than the desire to seperate out the > firmware in order to skirt the legal issues?
Not shipping lots of copies Not leaving crap locked in kernel memory when it isn't needed Letting vendors issue firmware updates (which especially in enterprise space is a big issue and right now gets messy with compiled in firmware)
> I think it is, in fact, the driver maintainer's perogative of whether > they want request_firmware() to be supported by their driver or not. > It is they who have to deal with any possible fallout.
And their users and the distributors for whom it can cause enormous pain.
If the two are closely tied then it makes a lot of sense to keep them tied, but that doesn't mean wasting a ton of kernel memory and bandwidth and disk space in the process. Loading the firmware and insisting on a specific version is quite civilised for a driver with such a tie.
(of course we had this argument over ten years ago about modules when various authors couldn't be bothered to modularise their driver which caused endless pain to the distributions and end users. Remember the sound driver situation in early Red Hat. Mind you it got me a job there fixing it ;))
Driver authors aren't God. There are other important considerations, but for tg3 if that means 'wrong MD5sum, no load' then fine.
Alan
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