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

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Date:	Tue, 15 Jul 2008 12:07:33 -0700
From:	David Woodhouse <dwmw2@...radead.org>
To:	Jeff Garzik <jeff@...zik.org>
Cc:	Linus Torvalds <torvalds@...ux-foundation.org>,
	Henrique de Moraes Holschuh <hmh@....eng.br>,
	Frans Pop <elendil@...net.nl>, arjan@...radead.org,
	akpm@...ux-foundation.org, alan@...rguk.ukuu.org.uk,
	linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org
Subject: Re: [GIT *] Allow request_firmware() to be satisfied from
	in-kernel, use it in more drivers.

On Tue, 2008-07-15 at 14:55 -0400, Jeff Garzik wrote:
> Linus Torvalds wrote:
> > 
> > On Tue, 15 Jul 2008, Jeff Garzik wrote:
> > 
> >> Henrique de Moraes Holschuh wrote:
> >>> On Tue, 15 Jul 2008, Frans Pop wrote:
> >>>> If I were able to compile firmware into the modules, the problem would be
> >>>> solved in one go.
> >>> And this thread would have been shorter, even. I hope someone decides to
> >>> write that support instead of complaining ;-)
> >> I've volunteered -- but if Linus and David will reject my code out of hand,
> >> there is not much point in writing it.
> > 
> > Quite frankly, I don't think it's something to reject out of hand, but it 
> > does sound pretty damn stupid.
> > 
> > Why compile them into the module, when that's just the _inflexible_ model?
> 
> Because it works today.
> 
> Because that is what people and their scripts expect, today.
> 
> Because people should not be forced to fix all their firmware-related 
> breakage immediately, just to boot 2.6.27.

On one hand, they don't -- the drivers I've updated in 2.6.27 aren't the
ones they need to boot. I deliberately left drivers/net and drivers/scsi
till later. I don't _expect_ any problems, but there's no rush -- we can
iron out any kinks with the drivers I've done already, then merge the
remaining updates into 2.6.28.

One the other hand, they _do_ need to fix such breakage immediately, if
they have it -- because what I'm doing here is nothing new. Most modern
drivers use request_firmware() already.

So if your userspace has this hypothetical "firmware-related breakage"
of which you speak, then it already won't boot on machines with qla2xxx,
which was converted to use request_firmware() in 2005. To pick but one
example out of many.

-- 
dwmw2

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