Re: Bug#239952: kernel-source-2.6.4: qla2xxx contains non-freefirmware

[Henning Makholm <henning@makholm.net>]

Scripsit Henning Makholm <henning@makholm.net>

> It ought not to be difficult (neither in a technical or in a
> economic/legal sense) for manufacturers to ship the standard firmware
> as a separate file on the driver CD that usually accompanies such
> hardware, and for the authors of free drivers to make the kernel look
> for the firmware on the file system when the device is first accessed.
> The driver could log an appropriate message during boot-up which
> some appropriate package could inspect (during installation, or even
> at each boot if so configured) and ask the user to insert the vendor's
> driver CD in order to copy firmware from it.

A side question: Does -legal think that it would be OK for Debian to
distribute *checksums* of the non-free magic blob-of-bits, such that
it can be located inside a Windows driver on a disk without needing to
know its exact position?

-- 
Henning Makholm                         "Al lykken er i ét ord: Overvægtig!"