In message 200606081540.31714.ngustavson@emacinc.com you wrote:
In general, a Linux driver shall not make any assumptions about any initialization being done (or not done) by a boot loader; instead, that driver is responsible for performing all of the necessary initialization itself.
IMHO the MAC is an exception to this. Since it's supposed to be hardcoded to the board it's inappropriate for the OS to be dynamically assigning it.
Nobody is talking about about dynamical assignemnt.
It's just that the *Linux* *driver* is responsible to initialize it, no matter which boot loader you use and what the boot loader is doing or not doing.
See the FAQ, and follow the links. If you still doubt this, seacht the ARM Linux mailing list archive. This has been discussed many times before.
Best regards,
Wolfgang Denk