Re: [PATCH] ip2: use request_firmware()

[Alan Cox <alan@lxorguk.ukuu.org.uk>]

> > Acked-by: Alan Cox <alan@redhat.com>
> 
> Except for the part where the firmware is pointlessly separated from the 
> driver.
> 
> We do not need two parallel driver hierarchies, one for firmware, one 
> for C source.

It makes enormous sense to me that we split them up. I don't care about
or believe the gnewspeak about licensing some people spew on the issue
but as a simple practical consideration:

- I don't want to wade through a ton of hex when looking at the driver
- I don't gain anything but having a ton of hex in the driver files
- I'd rather the ip2 firmware was ultimately loaded and unloaded when
needed as it saves us a load of non-pageable RAM.
- The firmware is a separate piece of software run on a separate CPU on a
seperate box on a separate card.

So from purely technical perspectives I think the patch is a very good
one, and as the nearest thing we have to a serial maintainer it gets my
ack. The only thing they share is an agreed API over the ISA/PCI bus -
and that isn't defined by peering at the firmware image.

Alan