Date: Wed, 10 May 1995 16:31:38 -0700 From: "Justin T. Gibbs" <gibbs@estienne.CS.Berkeley.EDU> To: terry@cs.weber.edu (Terry Lambert) Cc: davidg@Root.COM, freebsd-hackers@FreeBSD.org Subject: Re: A question of downloading device drivers Message-ID: <199505102331.QAA20695@estienne.cs.berkeley.edu> In-Reply-To: Your message of "Wed, 10 May 1995 12:46:10 MDT." <9505101846.AA26296@cs.weber.edu>
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>> >How about replacing it with the argument that the code can't be upgraded >> >without rebuilding the kernel? >> >> Neither can any other SCSI driver in the kernel. > >But mom, Billy did it, why can't I? 8-) 8-). > >That's an argument *against* the other code, not *for* the microcode. 8-P. > No. I guess I should have been more clear. My point is that until we have a generic VM86 bios boot that will allow modloading disk drivers, this is a moot point. Just because there may be some rare times where the microcode changes and the kernel driver does not (very rare if you look at the commit logs) doesn't really make the aic7xxx driver a special case. The goal should be the ability to replace any driver simply by changing a kernel loadable module, not just some special case of being able to replace the microcode for one specific SCSI driver. Since I've already shown all the reasons why it can't be done in the case of the aic7xxx microcode without VM86 support, can we drop this and talk about somthing that will more productive? >Note that I am *not* condemning the Adaptec code; by definition, anything >that works is better than anything that doesn't (that was the point I >attempted to make comparing licensing and the ability to boot at all). I didn't think that you were condeming the Adaptec code. I just found that many of your comments were misleading or came about from you being unaware of the aic7xxx internals. >On a related note, I wonder if you could have someone cede their rights >to source under GPL as part of a license for an agregated work... that >would allow binaries with GPL drivers without the other GPL baggage in >making them available for FTP. > > > Terry Lambert > terry@cs.weber.edu >--- >Any opinions in this posting are my own and not those of my present >or previous employers. -- Justin T. Gibbs ============================================== TCS Instructional Group - Programmer/Analyst 1 Cory | Po | Danube | Volga | Parker | Torus ==============================================
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