From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S1756395AbYFPUOW (ORCPT ); Mon, 16 Jun 2008 16:14:22 -0400 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org id S1753574AbYFPUOP (ORCPT ); Mon, 16 Jun 2008 16:14:15 -0400 Received: from earthlight.etchedpixels.co.uk ([81.2.110.250]:51951 "EHLO lxorguk.ukuu.org.uk" rhost-flags-OK-OK-OK-FAIL) by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S1753520AbYFPUOO (ORCPT ); Mon, 16 Jun 2008 16:14:14 -0400 Date: Mon, 16 Jun 2008 20:56:38 +0100 From: Alan Cox To: Jeff Garzik Cc: David Woodhouse , linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org, jaswinder@infradead.org Subject: Re: [PATCH] ip2: use request_firmware() Message-ID: <20080616205638.2e9930fe@lxorguk.ukuu.org.uk> In-Reply-To: <4856C6C8.6060506@garzik.org> References: <1213609751.26255.673.camel@pmac.infradead.org> <20080616115950.41bc65aa@lxorguk.ukuu.org.uk> <4856C6C8.6060506@garzik.org> X-Mailer: Claws Mail 3.4.0 (GTK+ 2.12.8; x86_64-redhat-linux-gnu) Organization: Red Hat UK Cyf., Amberley Place, 107-111 Peascod Street, Windsor, Berkshire, SL4 1TE, Y Deyrnas Gyfunol. Cofrestrwyd yng Nghymru a Lloegr o'r rhif cofrestru 3798903 Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org List-ID: X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org > > Acked-by: Alan Cox > > 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