Re: non-free firmware: driver in main or contrib?
Mark Brown <broonie@sirena.org.uk> writes:
> On Tue, Oct 12, 2004 at 12:57:57PM -0400, Brian Thomas Sniffen wrote:
>> Matthew Garrett <mgarrett@chiark.greenend.org.uk> writes:
>
>> > The vendor then produces a second revision of the hardware. It uses the
>> > same driver, but this time the firmware is on an eeprom. By your
>> > argument, we are then free to move the driver to main.
>
>> I disbelieve. It's not the same driver. This one doesn't have the
>> loadable firmware support, and does support operation without first
>> loading firmware.
>
> Sure it does. Rather than write a completely new driver the vendor
> modified the existing driver to do appropriate things for both revisions
> of the hardware. They may even have arranged things so that their newer
> hardware has the same firmware download interface, just with a default
> image provided on board.
Again, that looks like it would weaken the Depends to Suggests, and
allow moving the driver from contrib to main. I don't think you can
describe this difference between loadable and built-in firmware in a
way which doesn't match the contrib/main distinction, and I think
perhaps that means something.
-Brian
--
Brian Sniffen bts@alum.mit.edu
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