Re: [RFC][PATCH linux-firmware] isci: Add firmware blob and sources

[Ben Hutchings]

On Sun, 2011-12-18 at 10:59 -0800, Dan Williams wrote:
> On Sat, Dec 17, 2011 at 9:14 AM, Ben Hutchings <ben@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> > isci requires a parameter blob which is usually found in NVRAM, but it
> > can fall back to loading with request_firmware().  These files are
> > taken from the Linux source tree where they were wrongly added in
> > Linux 3.0.
> 
> Oh, I was of the impression that the external firmware tree was for
> license incompatible firmware images?

firmware/README.AddingFirmware doesn't say that the licence makes a
difference.

> > ---
> > I'm a bit unclear on the purpose and use of isci_firmware.bin.  Is it
> > needed for production hardware?
> 
> It's a stop gap for platforms with missing or broken oem parameters.
> It is meant to become vestigial once the platform revisions quiet
> down.
> 
> > Does it need to be customised
> > per-system, or are module parameters sufficient for that?  (If not, why
> > isn't it built into the driver?)
> 
> It is customized per system to meet EMI and signal integrity targets
> of a given platform.

Given this, does it make sense to distribute a binary at all?

Ben.

> > probe_roms.h is labelled with a dual BSD/GPLv2 licence but the other
> > files had no licence header so I've treated them as GPLv2 by default.
> 
> The latest version of probe_roms.h [1] supports the v1.3 oem parameter
> format, this patch appears to be v1.0 based.
> 
> Regards,
> Dan
> 
> [1]: http://git.kernel.org/?p=linux/kernel/git/djbw/isci.git;a=blob;f=drivers/scsi/isci/probe_roms.h;hb=refs/heads/fixes

-- 
Ben Hutchings
Teamwork is essential - it allows you to blame someone else.

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