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

FSFLA: Linux kernel is "open core"

Posted Nov 12, 2010 4:56 UTC (Fri) by lxoliva (subscriber, #40702)
In reply to: FSFLA: Linux kernel is "open core" by chad.netzer
Parent article: FSFLA: Linux kernel is "open core"

I don't see that their offering you the ability to make calls at emergencies justifies or legitimizes their depriving you of your freedoms. The ability to make calls is still a way of luring you to give up your privacy and your freedom (there's a reason why these tracking devices are called *cell* phones :-) So, thank them for what you're grateful of, but also complain and use your freedom and power of choice to demand respect. Don't let the bait buy your silence or make you complacent.

I'm not concerned with the copyriht issues. They're just a distraction. Even if there was no copyright issue whatsoever, the blobs would still be non-Free Software (i.e., software that deprives users of their four essential software freedoms), and inducing people to accept them is socially harmful practice that proponents of software freedom had better not engage in.

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FSFLA: Linux kernel is "open core"

Posted Nov 12, 2010 7:28 UTC (Fri) by lxoliva (subscriber, #40702) [Link]

Wait a minute! You're thinking of firmware as pure configuration data, with a few dozens of registers set to a certain fixed values so that the device does the job it was designed to do? That's is not what this is about! That's not non-Free Software, it doesn't even qualify as software!

The blobs we're talking about contain machine instructions that run on actual computers. Many of them are regularly modified fixing errors or even adding features. Some implement anti-features. You remember when Linux fit in a single floppy disk, and with a couple of floppy disks you could have an entire functional Free GNU+Linux operating system? Some of the blobs we're facing these days wouldn't fit in one of those floppy disks! They're entire operating systems for the computers hiding inside our computers, often hiding from you their true power.

Please help us (re)conquer freedom in that field! Don't let the expanding meaning of firmware fool you.

FSFLA: Linux kernel is "open core"

Posted Nov 12, 2010 8:09 UTC (Fri) by chad.netzer (✭ supporter ✭, #4257) [Link]

I'm not sure why you chose to interpret my statements that way. I said elsewhere, for example, that a distinction must be made between firmware blobs that run outside of the kernel (ie. on processors not running Linux), and binary driver blobs which run in kernel space. So I, and others, are aware that the firmware blobs represent code and running programs. Not just "configuration data".

Whatever. You don't appear to be responding to my points. Fair enough. A campaign to publicize the problems with binary code in the form of firmware blobs is perhaps a good one. But the way you go about it seems all wrong to me. It's kind of like PETA. A core part of their message (let's treat animals humanely) is pretty sane and agreeable. And yet they go about promoting it like complete dicks. I've stopped being a strict vegetarian, in very small part, because I didn't wanna end up like those kooks. I hope the same doesn't happen to my attitudes about Free Software...

FSFLA: Linux kernel is "open core"

Posted Nov 12, 2010 18:35 UTC (Fri) by lxoliva (subscriber, #40702) [Link]

> I'm not sure why you chose to interpret my statements that way

Because the register file interface is hardly enough to write the software to run on the embedded computer, but it would likely be plenty to configure a device whose firmware is just configuration data.

Now, perhaps the VHDL description would be desirable to have, but if the embedded device contains a general-purpose programmable computer, having a description of its ISA would come in handier than the VHDL description for the purposes of writing the software to run on it.

Thanks for your apparent support to the campaign. If you can find better ways to spread the message, by all means go for it, and be sure to let us know!

Freegards, ;-)