Re: Bug#446028: ITP: tg3dfsg -- firmware free Broadcom Tigon3 network driver

[Faidon Liambotis <paravoid@debian.org>]

Robert Edmonds wrote:
> Any modification to the tg3 driver to produce a GR 2006-004 compliant
> driver would have to diverge from the kernel team's patch acceptance
> guidelines[0] since upstream is intransigent[1] on making tg3
> firmware-free or firmware-optional.  The kernel team does not appear to
> be interested in maintaining such a driver, and it appears future linux
> kernel source packages will be patched[2] to simply remove the blobs of
> firmware (I don't know why the driver isn't simply removed entirely
> since the result does not compile).
This seems totally inappropriate.

If the driver includes non-free firmwares these should be removed or
split up from the driver source, not remove the driver entirely.
If what you say is right, the driver *works* for most of the hardware
without non-free blobs.
Therefore, I can't understand how removing the driver serves our users.

Any rationale behind that decision?
I feel like I'm arguing for something completely obvious...

Regards,
Faidon