Re: [riptide-announce] New riptide-0.3mbsibeta02061100 linux driver available

Marc Boucher wrote to discuss@linmodems.org:
> I am pleased to announce the first public open-source release of the
> Conexant (Rockwell) RipTide Audio/Communication Controller driver for
> Linux.
>
> It is now available for download from
>
> http://www.mbsi.ca/cnxtlindrv
 
Dear Marc,
 
Isn't that a misleading use of the term "open-source"?
 
818k of it is a proprietary, binary-only module. Users may not study or
modify or recompile the interesting bulk of the driver code, even though
it is plainly software which runs on the x86 CPU.
 
- Users cannot study the code, to simply learn from it.
 
- It only runs on x86 versions of Linux. It doesn't run on non-x86
  hardware, and cannot be ported by anyone other than Conexent.
 
- Most of the code cannot be audited for security or correctness, any more
  than other binary code.
 
- You even appear to have obfuscated the binary, to scramble symbolic
  information that might be useful for reverse engineering or security
  analysis.
 
In other words, the benefits of open source apply only to a very small
portion of the driver, and the caveats of closed source apply to the
rest.
 
It is a useful driver, for users prepared to run binary-only software
(with the caveats regarding freedom, security and reliability that
implies).
 
But to announce it as open source without mentioning that it is really
closed-source, binary-only software in an open-source wrapper is, IMHO,
marketing - not true by any stretch of the imagination.
 
Yours sincerely,
-- Jamie Lokier