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Patches 6-8 add the "ethtool -f" and the boot-time firmware upgrade on

the

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mlxsw spectrum driver.

When we tried using `ethtool -E' for qed we got burned for trying to use

the magic

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value [1]. When we suggested extending it to allow some private data

indications,

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Ben claimed that this entire ethtool infrastructure is a thing of the past,
and we should try using MTD instead - a claim no one bothered to counter.

Creating proprietary file-formats, filling them with metadata and
complementary driver state-machines could easily overcome the original
obstacle we faced. But it raises the question of whether these APIs are
valid or obsolete.

The metadata in our format is needed to allow us to hold several firmware
images for several spectrum silicon variants in one file, hence the metadata
is used by the driver and does not get transferred to the device.

Understood; Otherwise it would have been 'data' and not 'metadata'.

Our code can only be used to transfer firmware to the device, and cannot
be used to configure the device.

Not sure what this refers to? The differences between '-f' and '-E'?
Also, assuming you haven't started selling your adapters as persistent memory
for storage, what's the difference?