> > 3) an effort seems to be happening inside the upstream kernel to use the > > request_firmware infrastructure which allows to load firmware code from > > userland through an hotplug mechanism. There seem to be more and more > > drivers going this way, since there aare more in current git than in > > 2.6.15 > > which was released a week ago, qla2xxx being among them. > > And this seems like a good thing; for starters it makes it easier to test > different firmware versions without having to do irrelevant recompiles of > kernel code. >
The question is: when you remove the firmware from the driver, and all it is, is a file sitting in /lib/firmware/; and it's contents are just non-executable hex, with no C-code structure, is it just a BSD-licensed (in the qla2xxx case) data file, or is it still regarded as a piece of code. This, to me, is no different from a BSD licensed JPEG. I would argue it's the former. I can see the argument when it's a part of the source code, but not when it's a completely seperate entity. Of course, firmwares where the license has not been clarified by the copyright holder/IP owner would still be a problem; or where something is clearly unredistributable (ie: Intel IPW firmwares.) Cheers, Kyle -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
