Messages in this thread | | | Date | Tue, 05 Apr 2005 17:13:45 -0400 | From | Brian Gerst <> | Subject | Re: non-free firmware in kernel modules, aggregation and unclear copyright notice. |
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Jeff Garzik wrote: > Brian Gerst wrote: > >> Jeff Garzik wrote: >> >>> Josselin Mouette wrote: >>> >>>> Finally, you shouldn't forget that, technically speaking, using hotplug >>>> for uploading the firmware is much more flexible and elegant than >>>> including it in the kernel. Upgrading the firmware and the module >>>> should >>>> be two independent operations. People who are advocating the current >>>> situation are refusing technical improvements just because they are >>>> brought by people they find convenient to call "zealots". >>> >>> >>> >>> >>> This is highly amusing, coming from someone who does not maintain a >>> driver with a firmware. >>> >>> The current firmware infrastructure is too primitive. Compiling the >>> firmware into the driver is much easier on the driver maintainers and >>> users, presently. >>> >>> Repeating myself, >>> >>> * Most firmwares are a -collection- of images and data. The firmware >>> infrastructure should load an -archive- of firmwares and associated >>> data values. >> >> >> >> The firmware interface should only be concerned with getting the blob >> of data into kernel space. Once it is in kernel space the driver can >> parse out whatever archive format it is in. Take for example the ihex >> code that was posted recently. Similar code could be written to parse >> out a tarball, cpio archive, etc. > > > The archive format for firmware data collections must be standardized, > and generic code for loading such collections needs to be written, not > duplicated into each driver.
I never said code shouldn't be standardized or shared. I just said that it is a seperate function from the process of transferring the data from userspace to kernel space. That said, initramfs already uses cpio, so that would be a good choice to use.
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