> > We can't just require a new firmware version in the driver, as users > > most likely won't have it by the time they install the new kernel. So > > you'll have to support the old firmware version as well. > > Why not? That has been the paradigm forever. > > The new firmware version is already available in linux-firmware. > In any reasonable distro that would update the driver, you'd expect they'd > also update the firmware version on their filesystem. Just in case it wasn't clear from the original message - The firmware discussed here is the binary firmware, not the management firmware. For the management firmware [on persistent storage] there is a backward/forward compatibility scheme in place.