From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Date: Fri, 04 Jul 2008 13:43:29 -0700 (PDT) Message-Id: <20080704.134329.209642254.davem@davemloft.net> Subject: Re: [bug?] tg3: Failed to load firmware "tigon/tg3_tso.bin" From: David Miller In-Reply-To: <20080704142753.27848ff8@lxorguk.ukuu.org.uk> References: <1215178035.10393.763.camel@pmac.infradead.org> <486E2818.1060003@garzik.org> <20080704142753.27848ff8@lxorguk.ukuu.org.uk> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: Text/Plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: owner-linux-mm@kvack.org From: Alan Cox Date: Fri, 4 Jul 2008 14:27:53 +0100 Return-Path: To: alan@lxorguk.ukuu.org.uk Cc: jeff@garzik.org, dwmw2@infradead.org, andi@firstfloor.org, tytso@mit.edu, hugh@veritas.com, akpm@linux-foundation.org, kosaki.motohiro@jp.fujitsu.com, mchan@broadcom.com, linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org, linux-mm@kvack.org, netdev@vger.kernel.org List-ID: > There are good sound reasons for having a firmware tree, the fact tg3 is > a bit of dinosaur in this area doesn't make it wrong. And bnx2, and bnx2x, and e100's ucode (hope David caught that one!). It isn't just tg3. External firmware is by design an error prone system, even with versioning. But by being built and linked into the driver, it is fool proof. On a technical basis alone, we would never disconnect a crucial component such as firmware, from the driver. The only thing charging these transoformations, from day one, is legal concerns. I've been against request_firmware() from the beginning, because they make life unnecessarily difficult, and it is error prone no matter how well you design the validation step. -- To unsubscribe, send a message with 'unsubscribe linux-mm' in the body to majordomo@kvack.org. For more info on Linux MM, see: http://www.linux-mm.org/ . Don't email: email@kvack.org