[oe] Removal of the proprietary Intel IXP ethernet driver (ixp4{00, 25}-eth, ixp-osal, ixp4xx-csr) from OE

[Robert Wörle]

Rod Whitby schrieb:
> For a long time, the only way to use the internal ethernet port for
> ixp4xx devices was to use the proprietary intel driver.  The driver
> could not be linked with the kernel, and tainted the kernel.
>
> Thankfully, that has now changed with the development of the open source
> ixp npe kernel driver, which is GPL and can be freely linked with the
> kernel.  Note that the microcode firmware blob (ixp4xx-npe) which needs
> to be loaded by the driver is still Intel Proprietary and requires a
> click-through license on any firmware image that includes it.
>   
Dear Rod

Im not having such hardware but i am  interested in this drivers setup.
Do you think this code can be of any example ? I am in a similar
situation where i am confronted with a propriatory hardware driver.
Maybe that intel code as such is able to show me an good example of a
"firmware loading gpl module" and i could alter my code in such similar
way . Maybe the manufacturer looks at this and can go free with it also .
Could you explain to me the "click-through" license ?  Does one need to
agree on that on every module load or when will this come to play ?

kind regards
rob_w