linux-kernel - Re: [PATCH 1/4] firmware: generalize "firmware" as "system data" helpers

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Date:	Thu, 8 Oct 2015 16:16:45 -0400
From:	Josh Boyer <jwboyer@...oraproject.org>
To:	Greg KH <gregkh@...uxfoundation.org>
Cc:	"Luis R. Rodriguez" <mcgrof@...e.com>,
	"Luis R. Rodriguez" <mcgrof@...not-panic.com>,
	Ming Lei <ming.lei@...onical.com>,
	Jonathan Corbet <corbet@....net>,
	"Linux-Kernel@...r. Kernel. Org" <linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org>,
	linux-doc@...r.kernel.org, David Woodhouse <dwmw2@...radead.org>,
	David Howells <dhowells@...hat.com>,
	Seth Forshee <seth.forshee@...onical.com>,
	Rusty Russell <rusty@...tcorp.com.au>,
	Michal Marek <mmarek@...e.cz>,
	Matthew Garrett <mjg59@...f.ucam.org>, kyle@...nel.org,
	linux-security-module <linux-security-module@...r.kernel.org>,
	keyrings@...ux-nfs.org, Andrew Morton <akpm@...ux-foundation.org>,
	Kees Cook <keescook@...omium.org>,
	Casey Schaufler <casey@...aufler-ca.com>,
	Takashi Iwai <tiwai@...e.de>,
	Vojtěch Pavlík <vojtech@...e.cz>
Subject: Re: [PATCH 1/4] firmware: generalize "firmware" as "system data" helpers

On Tue, Oct 6, 2015 at 5:08 AM, Greg KH <gregkh@...uxfoundation.org> wrote:
> Just responding to one thing at the moment:
>
> On Mon, Oct 05, 2015 at 11:22:22PM +0200, Luis R. Rodriguez wrote:
>>   * we should phase out the usermode helper from firmware_class long term
>
> You can "phase out", but you can not delete it as it's a user/kernel api
> that we have to support for forever, sorry.

Assuming that dell-rbu is the only in-tree legitimate user of the
userhelper code, I'm curious if the code itself could simply move into
that driver.  It might help prevent the spread of reliance on an API
we don't want to see grow in usage.  We'd probably need to evaluate if
the two new users could migrate off that.

> Also, for some devices / use cases, the usermode helper is the solution
> (think async loading of firmware when the host wants to do it.)

Are any of those use cases in the kernel today, aside from dell-rbu?
Would Luis' async mode to system data suffice?

josh
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