linux-kernel - Re: [Ksummit-2008-discuss] RFC: Moving firmware blobs out of the kernel.

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Date:	Thu, 29 May 2008 15:59:42 -0500
From:	James Bottomley <James.Bottomley@...senPartnership.com>
To:	Yinghai Lu <yhlu.kernel@...il.com>
Cc:	Matthew Wilcox <matthew@....cx>,
	Arjan van de Ven <arjan@...ux.intel.com>,
	Greg KH <greg@...ah.com>,
	ksummit-2008-discuss@...ts.linux-foundation.org,
	David Woodhouse <dwmw2@...radead.org>,
	David Miller <davem@...emloft.net>,
	linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org
Subject: Re: [Ksummit-2008-discuss] RFC: Moving firmware blobs out of the
	kernel.

On Thu, 2008-05-29 at 13:55 -0700, Yinghai Lu wrote:
> On Thu, May 29, 2008 at 1:47 PM, Matthew Wilcox <matthew@....cx> wrote:
> > On Thu, May 29, 2008 at 01:29:38PM -0700, Arjan van de Ven wrote:
> >> I very much would like to see a kernel-firmware or something tarbal that contains
> >> a copy of all relevant "freely distributable" firmware, that users can just install
> >> independent of the actual kernel version (and that kbuild would just pick up somehow).
> >> That way we can deal with a lot more firmware without having to pollute the kernel / kernel release process
> >> (after all, the timing is different in terms of releasing) while making it easy
> >> to get the lot of it.
> >
> > There's definitely two schools of thought on this.  Sometimes firmware
> > changes (or adds) an interface.  If the kernel driver has to accommodate
> > new and old firmware, that adds complexity, and we all know that added
> > complexity means more bugs.  So I can definitely see some vendors
> > wanting to distribute their firmware with the kernel.
> >
> driver should check fw version...

Drivers with built in firmware usually don't.  Most don't actually have
even a version string they could check.  Why would they: the firmware
with the driver is the right one.   When I converted the aic94xx driver
to go from built in firmware to externally loaded, the first thing I had
to do was to give it a firmware version string in the binary.  It's this
type of problem that makes the conversion such a pain.

James


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