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Well, this is better...Well, this is better...Posted Nov 9, 2010 0:34 UTC (Tue) by khim (subscriber, #9252)In reply to: Yup - this will finally clear any doubt... by bojan Parent article: FSFLA: Linux kernel is "open core"
Does anyone seriously believe that Linus and other kernel developers wouldn't prefer NOT to ship binary blobs, if they could? Most of them spent their life releasing their source to general public. What possible motivation would they have for "bait-and-switch" here? Money? Fame? Power? Please. Well, the offenders here are usually hardware vendors and I'm not sure what drives them, but I suspect all three factors play a role. But the linux developers condone this situation so even if they are not actual felons they certainly can be counted as participators. I think members of FSFLA should do themselves and all of us a favour by rewriting all those binary blobs as free software. Yeah, I know - not as easy as writing a trashy press release, bashing folks that work hard on REAL problems every day. That it's not as easy is not a problem - harder things were done. That it's not as effective is a problem: if there are thousands of people who are contributing to the problem and only few who are fixing it then it'll never be fixed. Non free components are increasing faster than they're being replaced as was corectly pointed out...
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Well, this is better... Posted Nov 9, 2010 1:00 UTC (Tue) by dlang (✭ supporter ✭, #313) [Link]
many of the core linux developers are very clear that they are not worried aobut firmware blobs.
I would be very surprised if Linus made a change that caused the tarballs that he ships to be unusuable without some other tarball. He is willing to have the firmware reorganized so that a distro can easily remove it if they want to do so.
Well, this is better... Posted Nov 9, 2010 1:17 UTC (Tue) by bojan (subscriber, #14302) [Link]
> Well, the offenders here are usually hardware vendors and I'm not sure what drives them, but I suspect all three factors play a role. But the linux developers condone this situation so even if they are not actual felons they certainly can be counted as participators.
Felons? Offenders? Please. What crime has been committed?
Really nice that FSFLA is dragging Linus' name through the mud for a problem he and other developers cannot fix all by themselves (not even close). All the while Linus and Co are contributing ALL of their work to free software. Talking about hypocrisy...
> That it's not as easy is not a problem - harder things were done.
Yeah, and that's why I run Hurd.
If FSFLA want do something for REAL, they should then talk to the hardware manufacturers to free those firmwares. Or reverse engineer it. Or whatever else that WORKS.
Whinging about Linus being the bad guy just makes them look like spoilt kids that didn't like the latest toy they received.
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