Re: Dealing with drivers that need firmware on the filesystem

["Michael K. Edwards" <m.k.edwards@gmail.com>]

> Once the hardware's out there, it's out there--I don't think the case of
> "all devices with firmware in flash have been tracked down and destroyed,
> so we have to move this driver back to contrib" is a serious worry.

I was thinking more of the cases, "skipping the firmware download used
to result in a sufficiently working device using the firmware in
flash, but the driver evolved to require a feature that isn't in the
stock firmware yet" and "prototype versions have the firmware in flash
but they cut it from the retail version for cost reasons".  I've
experienced both of these scenarios, and would find it inconvenient
for the driver to be purged from the Debian kernel source when they
occur.

Cheers,
- Michael