free firmware mistakenly removed by LinuxLibre

[Felipe Sanches]

I believe that we should send patches to Linux Makefiles so that these
files are assembled during kernel build. Linux does not ship pre-built
.ko files. Why should we ship prebuilt firmware if we have the source
code available!?

Being able to build the firmware can also work as proof that the
source code available is actually functional and equivalent to the
binaries that are currently shipped blindly.

Felipe

On Fri, Dec 31, 2010 at 1:51 PM, Alexandre Oliva <lxoliva at fsfla.org> wrote:
> On Dec 31, 2010, Nic Alvaro <nicalvaro at lavabit.com> wrote:
>
>> How is Boot.S compiled into the kernel? I did not see it written in any
>> Makefile.
>
> It's not.  bootcode.bin is pre-assembled, and it's installed as
> firmware, requested by av7110_hw.c.
>
>> Are these free and hence should not be removed
>> firmware/av7110/bootcode.bin.ihex ?
>> firmware/dsp56k/bootstrap.bin.ihex ?
>
> Correct, both are Free.  There's a loop early in the deblob-<kver>
> script that checks for the presence of the sources for pre-assembled
> binary firmware files:
>
>  firmware/dsp56k/bootstrap.bin.ihex \
>    firmware/dsp56k/bootstrap.asm \
>  firmware/keyspan_pda/keyspan_pda.HEX \
>    firmware/keyspan_pda/keyspan_pda.S \
>  firmware/keyspan_pda/xircom_pgs.HEX \
>    firmware/keyspan_pda/xircom_pgs.S \
>
> --
> Alexandre Oliva, freedom fighter    http://FSFLA.org/~lxoliva/
> You must be the change you wish to see in the world. -- Gandhi
> Be Free! -- http://FSFLA.org/   FSF Latin America board member
> Free Software Evangelist      Red Hat Brazil Compiler Engineer
>