linux-kernel - Re: [git pull] drm

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Message-ID: <20091210231223.491d47eb@daedalus.pq.iki.fi>
Date:	Thu, 10 Dec 2009 23:12:23 +0200
From:	Pekka Paalanen <pq@....fi>
To:	Will Dyson <will.dyson@...il.com>
Cc:	Linus Torvalds <torvalds@...ux-foundation.org>,
	Dave Airlie <airlied@...ux.ie>,
	Xavier Bestel <xavier.bestel@...e.fr>,
	linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org, dri-devel@...ts.sf.net
Subject: Re: [git pull] drm

On Thu, 10 Dec 2009 15:35:08 -0500
Will Dyson <will.dyson@...il.com> wrote:

> This seems similar to the unfortunate situation with the b43
> wireless card firmware. Broadcom refuses to provide the firmware
> under a redistributable license (or even as files separate from
> their proprietary drivers). This did not stop b43 from being
> included in Linux. Distributions have dealt with it by providing
> a script that downloads the proprietary driver and extracts the
> firmware from it to files in /lib/firmware.
> 
> Do you think that a similar solution for nouveau would be legally
> problematic? Or is the issue technical, since you mention that the
> ctxprogs were obtained by mmiotrace, instead of a more
> straightforward extraction from the binary driver blobs?

It is definitely a lot harder than a script that just downloads
something. It would have to:
- download the proprietary driver
- install it and load it into the kernel
- activate mmiotrace (if it even is compiled in)
- reconfigure and start X and quit
- analyse the mmiotrace log to extract the ctxprog and ctxvals
- undo all the proprietary setup

I cannot comment on the legal side, but the practise sounds too
cumbersome.


Thanks.

-- 
Pekka Paalanen
http://www.iki.fi/pq/
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