linux-kernel - Re: [PATCH 00/18] firmware: moving drivers to request

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Date:	Sat, 31 May 2008 23:15:06 +0100
From:	David Woodhouse <dwmw2@...radead.org>
To:	Jeff Garzik <jeff@...zik.org>
Cc:	linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org
Subject: Re: [PATCH 00/18] firmware: moving drivers to request_firmware()

On Thu, 2008-06-05 at 17:33 -0400, Jeff Garzik wrote:
> Right.  And now you are creating Yet Another Format, rather than 
> rendering the firmware back into the preferred format:  binary blob.

At least it's simpler than the various formats we have at the moment.

> _If_ you are changing form of current in-tree firmwares at all, there is 
> no excuse not use direct binary blob -- the least common denominator for 
> all relevant operations.

There's plenty of excuses. The fact that we don't have any binary blobs
in the tree is a fairly big hint -- they're not easily processed by the
tools we use (like 'diff').

I'm keen to avoid unnecessary controversy while I convert drivers to
request_firmware(). I don't want to convert the existing ASCII
representations into raw binary blobs right now, because it's not my
primary focus and I don't care enough about it to fight that battle.

If you want to follow up with a patch to remove .ihex files and replace
them with raw binaries -- or better still start posting patches which
convert the drivers I've yet to get to, and just put raw binary blobs
into firmware/ instead of .ihex as I would, then please go ahead. But
please don't be offended if I don't put them in my firmware-2.6.git tree
because I think that'll make it less likely to get merged.

> Storing the firmware in .ihex is just as bad as storing the firmware in 
> source code -- it's a pointless wrapper that makes firmware verification 
> and updates far more difficult than they should be.

But still a lot easier than before I did it. One thing at a time, Jeff.

-- 
dwmw2

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