ipw(4) driver

[Matthew Dillon]

    I agree that the most convenient solution is the NDIS-like solution of
    being able to embed the firmware data as part of the module build.  Due
    to the license restrictions that means that the module would have to
    'dummy-out' if the firmware file is not present.

    But it doesn't sound like all that big a problem to me... in fact it
    would be fairly trivial to have the Makefile for the module check for
    the existance of the firmware file in various standard places and
    simply not build the module if the firmware file cannot be found,
    or build a dummy module that simply reports that the firmware was not
    available.

    Another option which would work for post-boot KLD would be to have
    the module itself open the firmware file and read it in.  DragonFly
    has convenient fp_*() functions to make this fairly trivial.  Of
    course, this doesn't work if the module is built-in to the kernel
    compile but is that really a show stopper?  I don't think it is.

    Or a combination of the two... if the Makefile finds the firmware
    data it is built into the module, if not then the module tries to
    load it on startup (but then can only be kldloaded after boot).

						-Matt