Marco d'Itri wrote: > josh.trip@verizon.net wrote: >>So if you don't have the firmware installed (into >>/usr/lib/hotplug/firmware/something_or_other), the driver will only >>print an error message and return an error code. If that is your >>definition of "fully functional", then perhaps we should include all the >>programs in contrib that link to non-free shared libraries in main; >>after all, someone might just want to see a linker error message. :) > > These two cases are well different: the first driver already contains > all code needed to manage the hardware device (even if it chooses to not > send some commends to the device until it will be ready to process them), > in the second case the program is not complete and lacks some parts. The driver contains code to interact with the firmware in operating the hardware device, just as the program contains code to interact with the library in performing its function. The driver does not contain all the code needed to manage the device; it contains code that can interact with the firmware. This particular driver interacts exclusively with the firmware, not the device (except for handing the firmware to the device). The driver is no more complete without the firmware than the program without the library. - Josh Triplett
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