On Wed, 18 Jul 2007, degroote@netbsd.org wrote:

> On Wed, Jul 18, 2007 at 10:23:14PM +0200, Quentin Garnier wrote:
>>
>> On Wed, Jul 18, 2007 at 09:33:18PM +0200, Joerg Sonnenberger wrote:
>>> On Wed, Jul 18, 2007 at 09:31:03PM +0200, Quentin Garnier wrote:
>>>> The way we handle firmwares in pkgsrc is just wrong.  We should have
>>>> only one package, that installs all the versions the kernel could
>>>> possibly ask for (which means the kernel asks for a specific version).
>>>
>>> Keep in mind that the firmware images are not only used by NetBSD.
>>> Please carefully consider this before changing any policy...
>>
>> There's a policy?  I'd actually like to set one...
>
> I understand what you mean and I agree. The current way we deal with
> firmware version is a pain, particulary when constructors decided to change
> the firmware layout every two minors revision of firmware ...
>
> On other side, I don't think it is a good idea that the kernel ask for a
> specific version. In most of the case, new version of the firmware solves
> internal issues and doesn't need change in the driver. It may not be a
> problem in current but in the stable branche, we can't ask for people to
> patch by hand their kernel in order to use the new firmware.
>
> On pkgsrc side, what I understand from your proposal is that you want to
> rename the firmware so we can retrieve the different versions of firmware.
> What joerg says I think is that other Os may not find the firmware file
> because it doesn't have the canonical name found in the default install.

 	If a new firmware version is not ABI compatible with the old
 	version, then there is some argument for considering it a
 	different firmware, whether that is encoded by putting it in
 	a separate directory, or having some special magic in the
 	filename. If a new firmware version *is* ABI compatible then
 	obviously it would not need the change.

 	pkgsrc already handles naming things differently across different
 	systems. Assuming we can decide on the 'best' naming to handle
 	the ABI issue (for interested systems) we will need pkgsrc to
 	use the old naming for existing NetBSD systems anyway, so any
 	other systems that wll take time to adjust, or will not adjust,
 	can use that.

-- 
 		David/absolute       -- www.NetBSD.org: No hype required --