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FSFLA: Linux kernel is "open core"FSFLA: Linux kernel is "open core"Posted Nov 15, 2010 13:10 UTC (Mon) by foom (subscriber, #14868)In reply to: FSFLA: Linux kernel is "open core" by lxoliva Parent article: FSFLA: Linux kernel is "open core"
lxoliva clearly believes that the kernel asking udev for a firmware filename is equivalent to inducing the user to use non-free software, while dwmw2 (and I, for that matter) think that's crazy. It seems pretty useless to continue this discussion further, since it's just going around in circles now.
And I really hope that simply posting a filename is never ever counted as "inducement to infringe" in a *legal* sense: that'd be a huge pain in the ass...
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FSFLA: Linux kernel is "open core" Posted Nov 15, 2010 20:11 UTC (Mon) by lxoliva (subscriber, #40702) [Link]
I have little hope of convincing dwmw2. I just want the records to show that we're trying to solve different problems, and that whatever solution he seems to think and impose on me won't solve the problem I'm trying to solve. A number of people got out of the previous round of discussions about Linux and Linux-libre with the mistaken impression that his proposed solution then would do anything to advance Linux-libre's goals, in spite of my attempts to show it didn't. I'd like to avoid a recurrence of this error.
Now, I don't want to turn this into a debate on legal issues, but I'd like to point out that Red Hat legal advises the Fedora project to refrain from as much as mentioning Free Software projects that apparently read on certain patents. That would be considered a material legal risk, with liability arising out of contributory infringement claims IIUC.
Now, baiting users towards non-Free Software, or even providing them with the poison, doesn't break any laws (except for those pieces of firmware for which no license can be found, that is ;-). It's an ethical and social issue. It's just good to see clearly where one's priorities are. I wish ethical hazards would get at least as much attention as legal ones.
FSFLA: Linux kernel is "open core" Posted Nov 18, 2010 14:10 UTC (Thu) by mpr22 (subscriber, #60784) [Link] I can think of at least one approach to this matter which is both technically correct and avoids the behaviour you regard as unethical "baiting". Don't break the drivers that depend on being able to receive non-Free firmware from the userland firmware daemon; remove them.
FSFLA: Linux kernel is "open core" Posted Nov 18, 2010 15:48 UTC (Thu) by lxoliva (subscriber, #40702) [Link]
This was the approach taken by gNewSense in its first release. Their cleaned-up kernel eventually became Linux-libre and the approach evolved in response to problems and changes in Linux.
One major problem was that some drivers would work just fine, or in a degraded way, without the blobs. Some were patched, but others were removed taking out useful functionality (video capture and graphics come to mind).
The changes in Linux were the widespread adoption of request_firmware(). We had already developed technology to selectively remove parts of drivers that contained blobs, and since moving firmware about didn't make any difference as to the ethics of providing or using them, we figured we'd be better off retaining the same functionality that we had when the blobs were part of the drivers. This implied disabling the blob requests.
However, instead of simply logging an error, like we did before, we figured we could use the hotplug interface to notify userland about the lack of Free firmware for that driver, so that's what we did. It's arguably better than silent (or quieter) failure to work, and it doesn't stop anyone who wants to use the blob from installing a driver that will take it.
That's where we are now, with a couple of plans to enable users to use blobs without having to install alternate drivers.
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