From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Date: Sun, 6 Jul 2008 13:17:51 -0700 (PDT) From: david@lang.hm Subject: Re: [bug?] tg3: Failed to load firmware "tigon/tg3_tso.bin" In-Reply-To: <20080704220444.011e7e61@lxorguk.ukuu.org.uk> Message-ID: References: <1215178035.10393.763.camel@pmac.infradead.org> <486E2818.1060003@garzik.org> <20080704142753.27848ff8@lxorguk.ukuu.org.uk> <20080704.134329.209642254.davem@davemloft.net> <20080704220444.011e7e61@lxorguk.ukuu.org.uk> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII; format=flowed Sender: owner-linux-mm@kvack.org Return-Path: To: Alan Cox Cc: David Miller , 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: On Fri, 4 Jul 2008, Alan Cox wrote: >> 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. > > As I said: We had this argument ten years ago (more than that now > actually). People said the same thing about modules. > and they were right then as well. Fortunantly,at that time the kernel developers listened and retained the possibility to not use modules. if David W were to make it possible to not use the load_firmware() call to userspace and build the firmware into the driver (be it in a monolithic kernel or the module that contains the driver) this would not be a problem. the default could be to build in the firmware (avoiding breakage) and those people and distros that see a reason to seperate the firmware would be able to by changing that setting. we have also had the same argument about initrd/initramfs where people have wanted to make them mandatory by moving things (like partition detection) out of the kernel. so far this hasn't happened, and I hope it doesn't. David Lang -- 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