FSFLA: Linux kernel is "open core" [LWN.net]

FSFLA: Linux kernel is "open core"

Posted Nov 11, 2010 19:24 UTC (Thu) by vonbrand (subscriber, #4458)
In reply to: FSFLA: Linux kernel is "open core" by lxoliva
Parent article: FSFLA: Linux kernel is "open core"

Not supporting Linux at all: 99.5% or so (what support is there was done by individual developers/hobbyists until there was sufficient (server side) interest in Linux...)
Maintaining their drivers themselves: Say 0.5% or so (and see what crap most of them are where source is available, recently it was said that just looking at the code gave eye cancer)
Freeing up firmware: Hasn't happened yet in any relevant way, AFAIK.

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FSFLA: Linux kernel is "open core"

Posted Nov 18, 2010 11:13 UTC (Thu) by daenzer (✭ supporter ✭, #7050) [Link]

> 3. Freeing up firmware: Hasn't happened yet in any relevant way, AFAIK.

The question is if we have/want to accept that as a fact of life, or if we might be able to change it in the future.

At least some versions of the microcode for the Radeon Command Processor (commonly abbreviated as CP) have certainly had bugs that could probably be fixed easily if the source code and toolchain for it was available. Clearly this is not providing the freedoms we've come to expect from free software such as the Linux kernel when it should be technically feasible to provide it. (Note that I don't mean to belittle in any way AMD's very commendable efforts providing documentation and free code, just pointing out there's still more that could be done)

I share doubts with many in this thread about whether the effort described in the article is the right approach, but although unfortunately I don't know what the best approach would be, I can't help feeling that not putting any pressure on vendors to open up this stuff isn't the right answer either.