The following reply was made to PR kern/32342; it has been noted by GNATS.

From: matthew green <mrg@eterna.com.au>
To: Rui Paulo <rpaulo@fnop.net>
Cc: kern-bug-people@netbsd.org, gnats-admin@netbsd.org,
	netbsd-bugs@netbsd.org, plunky@rya-online.net, gnats-bugs@netbsd.org
Subject: re: kern/32342: OpenBSD firmware loading framework 
Date: Tue, 20 Dec 2005 12:44:33 +1100

    On 2005.12.20 01:05:03 +0000, matthew green wrote:
    | The following reply was made to PR kern/32342; it has been noted by GNATS.
    | 
    | From: matthew green <mrg@eterna.com.au>
    | To: Iain Hibbert <plunky@rya-online.net>
    | Cc: kern-bug-people@netbsd.org, gnats-admin@netbsd.org,
    | 	netbsd-bugs@netbsd.org, gnats-bugs@netbsd.org
    | Subject: re: kern/32342: OpenBSD firmware loading framework 
    | Date: Tue, 20 Dec 2005 12:02:14 +1100
    | 
    |     
    |     1. It seems to me that it would be better to read such a firmware file one
    |     time and free it after use than to waste a chunk of memory (even if paged
    |     out) for ever.
    |     u
    |  
    |  some drivers need to reload the firmware "semi-often".  ie, when
    |  my iwi(4) craps out, reloading the firmware fixes it usually.  so
    |  getting rid of it isn't always isn't a good idea.
    
    Yeah, but right now you do this manually with the iwi driver. Think
    about a firmware loading API that could be called by iwi when it craps
    out.
 
 
 i don't see how this matters.  my point is that because it is
 done multiple times (and, can be done by the kernel in -current,
 not just 'ifconfig iwi0 up') having the firmware be re-loaded
 from the filesystem each time may not be desireable.  since it
 seems we are saying that buffer management is going to be the
 callers responsibility, this shouldn't be an issue.
    
 
 .mrg.