On Tue, Nov 15, 2016 at 10:28 AM, Johannes Berg
[off-list ref] wrote:

My argument basically goes like this:

First, given good drivers (i.e. using request_firmware_nowait())
putting firmware even for a built-in driver into initramfs or not
should be a system integrator decision. If they don't need the device
that early, it should be possible for them to delay it. Or, perhaps, if
the firmware is too big, etc. I'm sure we can all come up with more
examples of why you'd want to do it one way or another.

This is how I understood the the situation, but I never quite bought
it. What is wrong with the kernel saying "you must put your module and
your firmware together"? Sure, people may want to do things
differently, but what is the real blocker?

Fundamentally, it seems to me that if a module needs firmware, it
makes no sense to make the module available before the firmware. I'm
probably missing something though :)

Cheers,

Tom