General Questions about New Drivers and Driver Changes

["Allyn, Mark A" <mark.a.allyn@intel.com>]

Folks:

I have been recently put into a position where I might need 
to add and/or change device drivers in the kernel.

I have some questions about protocol and preferences within
the Debian community.

First of all, I do understand that anything I submit to be
added to Debian must be covered by the GPL or the LGPL
license. Is that correct?

I hear of something called the ABI number, which is used
to determine if a particular module has been compiled 
for a specific version/configuration of the kernel. Is 
this true, and where do I find the ABI number in the
sources or the compiled binaries?

Having read this email list for a while, I am under the
impression that it is best for me to try to get any driver
changes or new drivers into the upstream kernel (at www.kernel.org) 
and then let them 'trickle down' into the Debian kernel, 
rather than try to insert them into the Debian kernel directly. 

Is this correct for all drivers? For example, do you 'pull down'
Alsa audio drivers directly from www.alsa-project.org or do 
you prefer to wait until they have 'percolated' into the
kernel from www.kernel.org? How about the kernel level graphics
drivers such as agpgart.ko? Do these come from www.kernel.org
or from x.org/xfree86.org?

Also, once a driver appears in the upstream kernel, how long does it
take for it to 'percolate' down into the Debian unstable and test
distributions. I do understand that we may not see a new Debian
stable distribution until about fourth quarter of 2006.

Also in regard to the GPL and LGPL licenses; I may find myself
in a position of having a GPL licensed driver, however that 
driver may require to load in a separate non-GPL licensed
'firmware' file for the device. The 'firmware' would be a binary
only propriatary file. The GPL driver can be made available
to www.kernel.org and Debian, but the firmware would have to 
be downloaded from a click-to-agree-with-license type of
site.

What is the preferences/philosophy of Debian and the kernel 
folks in regard to GPL Driver / propriatary firmware situation?

Thank you very much for your help. Your answers to these 
questions will help me greatly in my work within the Debian
community.

Thank you

Mark Allyn
mark.a.allyn@intel.com