linux-kernel - Re: [linux-dvb] [PATCH] Remove fdump tool for av7110 firmware

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Date:	Sun, 06 Jul 2008 15:48:02 +0100
From:	David Woodhouse <dwmw2@...radead.org>
To:	Devin Heitmueller <devin.heitmueller@...il.com>
Cc:	Klaus Schmidinger <Klaus.Schmidinger@...soft.de>,
	kernelnewbies <kernelnewbies@...linux.org>,
	kernel-janitors <kernel-janitors@...r.kernel.org>,
	LKML <linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org>,
	Jaswinder Singh <jaswinder@...radead.org>,
	linux-dvb@...uxtv.org, Alan Cox <alan@...rguk.ukuu.org.uk>
Subject: Re: [linux-dvb] [PATCH] Remove fdump tool for av7110 firmware

On Sun, 2008-07-06 at 10:29 -0400, Devin Heitmueller wrote:
> Correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't this also affect those
> distributions that consider kernels with binary firmware blobs to not
> be free software?  Those distributions take the stance that the
> firmware must be loadable by userland, in which case the proposed
> patch removes this capability.

No, it doesn't remove that capability.

We're just observing that the trick which fdump.c uses to turn firmware
into a hex array in C source is obsoleted by the generic ability to
include firmware blobs into the kernel using CONFIG_EXTRA_FIRMWARE. If
we just use the generic method, then the conditional code in the driver
can go away, as can the fdump tool.

Yes, that does mean that it's either in the _kernel_ or in userspace,
rather than being in the .ko file -- but if you want modularity and are
already depending on having a functional userspace, it doesn't seem to
make a lot of sense to have this reimplementation of generic
functionality, just so that you can keep the two parts in _one_ file.

-- 
dwmw2

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