Re: non-free firmware: driver in main or contrib?
Glenn Maynard writes:
> On Mon, Oct 25, 2004 at 11:40:22PM -0400, Michael Poole wrote:
> > > That doesn't really change the fact that drivers that only work after
> > > pointing it at a non-free data block have a non-free dependency, and
> > > belong in contrib, though.
> >
> > The driver operates as designed regardless of what is in the firmware
> > array, file, EEPROM, etc. The device does not. For me, the explicit
> > interface between peripheral and CPU makes the distinction clear.
>
> "Firmware not found" is operating as designed, but I don't think that
> qualifies as the driver being "functional", any more than "cannot open
> shared object file: No such file or directory".
Not at all. If you fill the block with random data, the driver will
continue to do what you expect and what you can follow by reading its
source code. It is the device that will not perform and that will not
live up to its end of the interface. That is why I referred earlier
to a hypothetical device that ignored the firmware you send to it.
Michael Poole
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