linux-kernel - Firmware versioning best practices II

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Date:	Fri, 19 Feb 2010 18:23:47 -0800
From:	"Luis R. Rodriguez" <mcgrof@...il.com>
To:	linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org
Cc:	linux-wireless <linux-wireless@...r.kernel.org>,
	David Woodhouse <dwmw2@...radead.org>,
	Marcel Holtmann <marcel@...tmann.org>,
	Vipin Mehta <Vipin.Mehta@...eros.com>
Subject: Firmware versioning best practices II

Last year, with the help of the community we at Atheros opened up the
first (to my knowledge) firmware for a device driver used on the Linux
kernel. The community has been advancing the firmware and making
changes and even an alternative driver with more features is being
baked. We hadn't dealt with open firmware before and this itself
raises a few management questions about the firmware APIs, code
revision and general best practices which are likely not documented
anywhere. We reviewed this on linux-wireless last year [1] and Pavel
Roskin made a good suggestion for model to follow. I still have a few
more questions though and wanted a wider review on this.

I've documented a summary of what we have discussed and suggested so far here:

http://wireless.kernel.org/en/developers/Documentation/firmware-versioning

We should still address how drivers should deprecate firmware. Can we
deprecate old firmware APIs from drivers on each kernel release? Any
other comments or feedback?

[1] http://wireless.kernel.org/en/developers/Documentation/firmware-versioning

  Luis
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