Messages in this thread | | | Subject | Re: [linux-dvb] [PATCH] Remove fdump tool for av7110 firmware | From | David Woodhouse <> | Date | Sun, 06 Jul 2008 15:48:02 +0100 |
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On Sun, 2008-07-06 at 10:29 -0400, Devin Heitmueller wrote: > Correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't this also affect those > distributions that consider kernels with binary firmware blobs to not > be free software? Those distributions take the stance that the > firmware must be loadable by userland, in which case the proposed > patch removes this capability.
No, it doesn't remove that capability.
We're just observing that the trick which fdump.c uses to turn firmware into a hex array in C source is obsoleted by the generic ability to include firmware blobs into the kernel using CONFIG_EXTRA_FIRMWARE. If we just use the generic method, then the conditional code in the driver can go away, as can the fdump tool.
Yes, that does mean that it's either in the _kernel_ or in userspace, rather than being in the .ko file -- but if you want modularity and are already depending on having a functional userspace, it doesn't seem to make a lot of sense to have this reimplementation of generic functionality, just so that you can keep the two parts in _one_ file.
-- dwmw2
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