Quanta Building MIT's $100 Laptops (eWeek) [LWN.net]

Quanta Building MIT's $100 Laptops (eWeek)

Posted Dec 16, 2005 11:09 UTC (Fri) by khim (subscriber, #9252) [Link]

Do not mix free driver and free firmware. Yes, situation with free drivers is better today, but situation with firmware is not: most free drivers for cheap cards include some "blob" to be loaded in card on startup; more expensive models include flash where firmware is stored - then driver is truly free.

Since blob is in fact computer program (even if for specialized CPU and compiled with specialized, usually not freely-available, tools) Debian claims it's not enough to have this blob and open-source driver: you need sources for firmware too. Not something ODM will ever bother with: it's not even executed on CPU, it's not related to Linux is any way (the only relation is that Linux system must have this blob to initialize card), there are no need to ever port it (even if you'll put card in your Mac with PowerPC main CPU specialized CPU on card itself will be the same), so noone except Debian are bothered by that...

Quanta Building MIT's $100 Laptops (eWeek)

Posted Dec 16, 2005 14:00 UTC (Fri) by vonbrand (subscriber, #4458) [Link]

Fedora doesn't ship the firmware for the intel ipw2100 and 2200 WiFi cards either, for exactly the same reasons as Debian.

Quanta Building MIT's $100 Laptops (eWeek)

Posted Dec 16, 2005 21:14 UTC (Fri) by drag (subscriber, #31333) [Link]

No!

Fedora and Debian can't include the Intel Firmware because Intel forbids redistribution of it. Debian maybe stinkers about it since most firmware forbids modifications and such, but they'd still distribute it in non-free.

It's Intel that is the problem, not Debian, not Fedora.

Also cards that don't require firmware are not nessicarially more expensive. Ralink rt2500 style cards do not require a loadable firmware to operate and they are _still_ cheaper AND they have fully open sourced drivers provided by the manufactures!

Go ask the OpenBSD people if you don't beleive me.

Any distro offering firmware images as part of their normal install for Intel wireless cards can face a lawsuit from Intel unless they have a prior licensing agreement, which you cannot use youself.

Also:

Firmware != Binary blob.

Firmware is not the same as compiled code. It's a specific item for a specific peice of hardware and is completely architecture and OS independant.

You can use the same firmware images for Linux on PowerPC, on Linux on x86, on OS X, on Windows XP, on OpenBSD. It doesn't matter.

Binary blobs are kernel code, based on Linux kernel developer's code, compiled from C source code before they are made aviable to you and when they are used become part of the Kernel code running on your system. You can't use the same binary blob on a x86 Linux as on a PowerPC linux, for instance.

There is some 'glue' code that people provide with binary blobs, but it exists only to shoehorn generic kernel code into a specific kernel (aka the one your running).

There is a huge difference between binary blobs and actual firmware.

Beware that some manufacturers want to cloud the issues or mislead people by giving the name 'firmware' to things that are not firmware. For instance on the Linksys they call the OS that they load on the onboard flash drive 'firmware upgrades' when in reality it's just a striped down Linux or Vxware OS.

Quanta Building MIT's $100 Laptops (eWeek)

Posted Dec 18, 2005 4:42 UTC (Sun) by khim (subscriber, #9252) [Link]

For instance on the Linksys they call the OS that they load on the onboard flash drive 'firmware upgrades' when in reality it's just a striped down Linux or Vxware OS.

If it does not run on main CPU - it's still firmware. It does not matter if it's full-blown OS or not. If it's Linux - you are entitled to sources, if it's Vxware OS - you are not, but either way from PC's point of view it's still firmware.

Quanta Building MIT's $100 Laptops (eWeek)

Posted Dec 16, 2005 11:10 UTC (Fri) by tajyrink (subscriber, #2750) [Link]

Free drivers, maybe, but not free firmware if they require such to be uploaded from the host computer. And eg. Intel doesn't have the firmware even freely redistributable, like Zydas, Atmel and some others do (not that it'd help including it in Debian main, but at least they could be provided from more places).

Educated guess

Posted Dec 16, 2005 12:18 UTC (Fri) by man_ls (subscriber, #15091) [Link]

I think that the legal issues facing wi-fi are as follows: 802.11g establishes a range of frequencies and mechanisms for hopping between them, in order to avoid any resonances or dampings and find working frequencies in any environment. The range of frequencies varies from country to country: US, Japan, maybe even within Europe.

The cheap solution is to have one chip and change the range of frequencies in software (in this case, firmware). If you have access to their sources, you can reprogram the chip to go outside the range of legal frequencies. Probably not a big deal; but companies may face liabilities.

A good, expensive solution would be to have different versions of the chip for the different markets. Another one might be to limit yourself to a range of frequencies which is common to all countries (the intersection between all ranges); I don't know if this is at all possible. So probably Intel and Ralink are doing one of these things, and their chips can be safely controlled in free software.

This is all an educated guess. Can anyone add a more knowledgeable opinion?

Educated guess

Posted Dec 16, 2005 14:20 UTC (Fri) by khim (subscriber, #9252) [Link]

Essintionally correct. Just one change: noone ever goes via "different hardware for different countries" route- unless difference in frequency is so big they need to redesign high-frequency part (like GSM 1800 vs GSM 1900). But if adapter is not extremally cheap they just put flash on card and store firmware there - so no need to keep firmware in driver.

What I can not uderstood is why this is such a big deal. Non-free firmware is always in your system: in your WiFi card, in your CD-ROM, in your HDD, etc. And it's not a big deal for Debian creators. Why is it such a big deal if it's on CD in and not on chip then ?

Educated guess

Posted Dec 16, 2005 17:41 UTC (Fri) by bk (guest, #25617) [Link]

Distribution, obviously. Debian doesn't distribute the firmware in your HDD or DVD drive, but it does have to distribute non-free binary blobs.

Educated guess

Posted Dec 17, 2005 12:51 UTC (Sat) by man_ls (subscriber, #15091) [Link]

Yeah, it is copyrighted material: we would be at the mercy of the vendor, who might limit distribution if it wanted e.g. to sell new wireless adapters at any point in the future.