Andrew Haley wrote:
If you remove the non-free software from tg3.c the device will still
work.
Completely?
Yes.
no loss of functionality whatsoever?
I think the firmware does some TCP offloading or something so more
processing happens in the card instead of the kernel, but I'm really not
certain what the firmware is doing. In fact, only the people with the
source code know what it's doing, I supppose.
But it works 100% fine as a regular network card without the firmware.
So, let me summarize: we have a bit of binary-only fimware that does
goodness knows what in a critical part of our systems. We don't actually
need this firmware; it may or may not improve performance. Is this right?
I don't know if this is correct or varies from device to device but my
assumption was that most devices would have a version of firmware
installed when shipped and the drivers are updating to current versions.
It sounds to me as though we're better off without it, regardless of its
status with regard to the GPL.
Perhaps, if you like old buggy versions of firmware...
--
Les Mikesell
lesmikesell@xxxxxxxxx
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