[Buildroot] [PATCH v2 1/5] linux: enable CONFIG_EXTRA_FIRMWARE_DIR

[Angelo Compagnucci]

On Sun, Oct 30, 2022 at 9:43 PM Thomas Petazzoni <
thomas.petazzoni at bootlin.com> wrote:

> On Fri, 14 Oct 2022 08:58:56 +0200
> Angelo Compagnucci <angelo at amarulasolutions.com> wrote:
>
> > +     # The kernel CONFIG_EXTRA_FIRMWARE feature requires to have the
> firmware full
> > +     # path for locating firmware file.
> > +     $(call
> KCONFIG_SET_OPT,CONFIG_EXTRA_FIRMWARE_DIR,"$(STAGING_DIR)/lib/firmware")
>
> Unfortunately, this is really not a good idea, especially if it is
> meant to be used with your rtl8723ds-bt package. Indeed, the
> rtl8723ds-bt firmware is according to your package under a PROPRIETARY
> license, so not compatible with the GPL.
>

Let's suppose the firware I was planning to load permits to be distributed
within the kernk, why it isn't a good idea?
I don't think technically there is some problems here, else let me
understand.


> Except that CONFIG_EXTRA_FIRMWARE_DIR can only be used for firmware
> that is GPL-compatible, as they get linked into the kernel image. What
> you're proposing to do makes it illegal to distribute the resulting
> kernel image. You can do it on your machine, but you're not allowed to
> distribute this kernel image, which for something like Buildroot is a
> bit of a problem, as you can imagine.
>
> See
>
> https://elixir.bootlin.com/linux/latest/source/Documentation/driver-api/firmware/built-in-fw.rst#L21


I don't really want to go down the rabbit hole of what is legal or not,
there are legal departments for that.
If you think the driver in question is not accptable, I'm ok with that, but
I think the mechanism should stay for all the people who need to do
something like that.


>
> The only options for such firmware is:
>
>  (1) In the root filesystem, which means the driver needs to be a
>      module... but that's anyway OK as it's going to be the case as it's an
>      out of tree kernel driver, and therefore always compiled as a
>      module.
>
>  (2) In an initramfs loaded separately from the kernel.
>

Let's discuss this in the driver, I'm more than welcome to change the way I
conceived it.


> Best regards,
>
> Thomas
> --
> Thomas Petazzoni, co-owner and CEO, Bootlin
> Embedded Linux and Kernel engineering and training
> https://bootlin.com
>


-- 

Angelo Compagnucci

Software Engineer

angelo at amarulasolutions.com
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Amarula Solutions SRL

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