FSFLA: Linux kernel is "open core"

I did not see it on this announcement, but I recall seeing it on other related discussions (that somehow it was better for wireless cards to have flash memory with their firmware instead of saving some cents and pushing the firmware storage into the driver). I think it is better that the code is free no matter where it is stored; it being distributed within the hardware itself, on a CD on the hardware's box, on the firmware tree, or on the main kernel tree, should not make a difference. I would prefer to avoid the main kernel tree only to avoid a very small possibility of confusion (the kernel being GPLv2 except for one small directory can be confusing, since most people would expect it all to be GPLv2; the separate firmware tree makes things more obvious).

> Clever use of your freedom (and power) of choice will bring us all freedom, because hardware suppliers ultimately want to sell their stuff.

Yes, but there is also the other side: users want to use the stuff they bought. If you do not have many users, your ability to put pressure on the manufacturers is much weakened. What you need is to put pressure on the manufacturers without driving away the users. I believe the way it currently works with drivers goes in that direction; if your driver is not on the upstream kernel it is a second-class citzen, subject to breaking every single kernel release, and to get into the upstream kernel it has to be GPLv2 or compatible. What we need is something like that but for firmware (which is completely separate from the drivers, since it even runs on a separate chip, so the "it is a part of the kernel thus it must be GPLv2" argument does not work).