Re: Bug#258082: missing advansys module
Norbert Tretkowski wrote:
> * Nathanael Nerode wrote:
>> I unflagged it and built my own kernel, and it appears to work just
>> fine.
>>
>> Perhaps Debian should allow it to build; the card is rather common.
>
> Mr. "binary firmware is evil",
s/evil/non-free/, please.
> did you realize that the advansys
> driver contains a small firmware blob?
No, in a word. Thanks for pointing it out. (Actually, it contains at least
three moderately large microcode blobs.) That's one thing which makes this
stuff so annoying; it's not immediate or trivial to find all the embedded
binary microcode in the kernel, or even in a particular file. I certainly
can't claim to have found all the "contaminated" files.
* Since I actually have an advansys card to test on, I should be able to
convert this driver to userland firmware loading without the annoyances of
a remote testing cycle.
* The advansys driver is licensed under a very permissive non-copyleft
license which doesn't require distribution of source. This makes it the
first driver I've found with binary microcode which is actually licensed
correctly! Hooray for that! This means I would be entirely comfortable
making a package for non-free to contain the microcode.
Actually, thanks for pointing this out; I now have a new project which
should be significantly less frustrating than the other firmware-separation
projects. :-)
--
This space intentionally left blank.
Reply to: