From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S267614AbUH0WDJ (ORCPT ); Fri, 27 Aug 2004 18:03:09 -0400 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org id S267863AbUH0V6Y (ORCPT ); Fri, 27 Aug 2004 17:58:24 -0400 Received: from fw.osdl.org ([65.172.181.6]:10409 "EHLO mail.osdl.org") by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S262329AbUH0Vx0 (ORCPT ); Fri, 27 Aug 2004 17:53:26 -0400 Date: Fri, 27 Aug 2004 14:52:59 -0700 (PDT) From: Linus Torvalds To: Anton Altaparmakov cc: Xavier Bestel , Christoph Hellwig , Craig Milo Rogers , Kernel Mailing List , webcam@smcc.demon.nl Subject: Re: Termination of the Philips Webcam Driver (pwc) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: References: <20040826233244.GA1284@isi.edu> <20040827004757.A26095@infradead.org> <20040827094346.B29407@infradead.org> <1093628254.15313.14.camel@gonzales> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org On Fri, 27 Aug 2004, Anton Altaparmakov wrote: > > So how come we allow drivers which load binary firmware into the kernel? > And there are plenty of them... Beause firmware is a clearly separate part. It's not a part of the kernel at all - it doesn't even run on the same CPU, for christ sake! Firmware if anything is _further_ removed from the kernel than user programs are. > There isn't very much difference between binary firmware and the binary > module in this case. Go back and read this same thread three or four months ago. You are barking up the wrong tree. There is a HUGE difference between a binary kernel module running inside the kernel, and a firmware image running on another CPU entirely behind a bridge. There's a huge conceptual separation, but there's also an actual _physical_ separation. How much different do you want things to be? Firmware on a device is logically equivalent to the kernel running on another machine entirely. A USB device firmware is from a logical (and technical) standpoint not really any different than a fileserver running on a different computer. Linus