Messages in this thread |  | | Date | Mon, 16 Jun 2008 20:56:38 +0100 | From | Alan Cox <> | Subject | Re: [PATCH] ip2: use request_firmware() |
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> > 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
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