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safety-critical systems can use ROMsafety-critical systems can use ROMPosted Oct 18, 2006 6:35 UTC (Wed) by bronson (subscriber, #4806)In reply to: safety-critical systems can use ROM by jstAusr Parent article: FSF should separate GPLv3 changes (Linux.com) Wouldn't the frequencies be a good candidate for ROM? Absolutely not! Frequency tables tend to be very different in different countries and in fact are continually changing. How many wireless chips nowadays hard-code the frequency tables? None! There's a reason for that. Um, isn't the point of the FSF to advocate free software? I fail to see how software permanently burned onto a ROM is more free. Does it help the user? Or the developer? Or anybody at all? ROMing something is almost always a step in the wrong direction[1]. Why on earth are you advocating this? [1]: except in extremely price-sensitive scenarios of course, where burning a few million ROMs becomes noticeably cheaper than serial EEPPROMs or flash. But on-die flash in modern microcontrollers is making even this moot.
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about "put it in ROM" Posted Oct 18, 2006 11:27 UTC (Wed) by coriordan (guest, #7544) [Link] Why does "put it in ROM" increase freedom? Currently, there are three options:
If hardware distributors have all three options, they might often go for option #2 because it allows them to lock out the user without limiting their ability to control the user's computer. If option #2 is taken away, then locking out the user will come with the cost of also locking themselves out. Option #1 would be far preferable, and sometimes option #3 would be offensive, but presenting options #1 and #3 will yield more #1s than presenting options #1, #2, and #3 - which could yield a lot of #2s. For genuine cases, such as setting the radio strength on a wifi card, manufacturers might put that bit of the driver in ROM. If there is no cost to them, then manufacturers will DRM the entire driver (instead of just the radio strength bit), and will tell the free software community "Sorry, we're complying with regulations".
about "put it in ROM" Posted Oct 18, 2006 12:14 UTC (Wed) by svkelley (guest, #37299) [Link] >>For genuine cases, such as setting the radio strength on a wifi card, manufacturers might put that bit of the driver in ROM. If there is no cost to them, then manufacturers will DRM the entire driver (instead of just the radio strength bit), and will tell the free software community "Sorry, we're complying with regulations".
No one in the aviation business is foolish enough to put their avionics software into a ROM. FAA and other regulators require the ability to update the firmware to fix critical issues. You would never be able to ship a product as you would fail certification.
You may not realize this but ROM costs far more than FLASH based memory for large sizes. I can't think of a single device that I make or have worked on in the past three years that uses ROM for any storage.
Sean
about "put it in ROM" Posted Oct 18, 2006 13:20 UTC (Wed) by coriordan (guest, #7544) [Link] They can also put the software-containing-whatever in a locked box. That's another thing GPLv3 can't prevent and doesn't try to prevent. Or they can send out a worker to take out the dodgy ROM and put in a working one. But these are corner cases. If GPLv3 is perfect for every application except for the critical parts of some avionics software, that's not a big problem. Being suitable for 99.999% of applications would be just grand. The avionics industry might just have to write some of their software themselves (but I suspect they do this already). (I put my previous commented into my blog: Preventing modification: put it in ROM?)
about "put it in ROM" Posted Oct 18, 2006 21:31 UTC (Wed) by bronson (subscriber, #4806) [Link] Reply to your blog (commenting here because I don't want to sign up for yet another site):
That's some tortured logic. How are you going to cut out option 2? The GPLv2 will still allow it and clearly there are a large number of people who are still interested in its existence. Besides, option 2 is a freedom that I personally value highly. All this talk of restricting what you can and cannot do with the compiled software... If the FSF shares your view on freedom, maybe it's time for them to change their name to the "Free Sourcecode Foundation"?
about "put it in ROM" Posted Oct 19, 2006 11:28 UTC (Thu) by coriordan (guest, #7544) [Link] GPLv3 cuts out option #2. GPLv2 will still have option #2, as will many other free software licences. Developers can choose what licence to use.
The way that GPLv3 cuts out option #2 does not interfere with "what you can and cannot do with the compiled software". GPLv3 only says that if you distribution a software+hardware system, and if you rigg the hardware to malfunction if the software does not have an approved fingerprint, then you have to also distribute whatever digital magic dust is needed to authorise a fingerprint.
So this only places a requirement on people who are distributing products which combine software+hardware, and which are specially rigged to prevent running software modification. It is very unlikely that this includes you. It doesn't include any of the Linux hackers, AFAICT, and it doesn't include Red Hat, or Debian, or SuSE, or Ubuntu. It is only an additional requirement on the company behind the Tivo, and some router manufacturers.
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