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The trouble with firmwareThe trouble with firmwarePosted Jan 6, 2011 17:14 UTC (Thu) by nye (guest, #51576)Parent article: The trouble with firmware
Being slow is not the only problem. What you're suggesting is what the git documentation calls rewriting history , and it explains why doing this would make it impossible to perform merges, including updating our tree from Linus'.I'm usually pretty sympathetic to RMS's views, but in the words of Jim Raynor, this is bullshit. This is a disgustingly cynical piece of doublespeak that would be sickening even from a career politician. He knows full well that what he's saying is a lie.The term "rewriting history" is a metaphor which expresses Torvalds' views. In effect, it claims that "If Torvalds let someone put nonfree software into a present or even past version of Linux, everyone who wants to refer to a repository of Linux is obligated to refer to that nonfree code." That is his views. We believe it is wrong to tell anyone about this nonfree software, and we will not follow his views. It's like some demon took over RMS a couple of years ago hellbent on driving his reputation into the dirt.
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The trouble with firmware Posted Jan 10, 2011 13:47 UTC (Mon) by jwarnica (subscriber, #27492) [Link]
I think, at one point, RMS was a wackjob, had interesting politics, and someone who produced useful technology. One looked first at his technology (Emacs significantly, the gnu toolset, etc), then at his politics, and didn't dig much deeper.
It is easy to like someone you don't really know.
On a personal basis, RMS stopped producing technology decades ago. And GNU/FSF is only a shadow of its ones productive self, at least WRT other groups and companies producing free software.
Politically, OSS has subverted much of the "freedom" goals, and OSS if not "free" software is fairly common these days. The war isn't won, but many battles have been. There is a big choir these days, and RMS talks, declarations, and decrees are generally targeted at the now overwhelmed choir.
So there really isn't anything else, nothing new, from RMS, except for the wackjob part.
The trouble with firmware Posted Jan 10, 2011 14:48 UTC (Mon) by foom (subscriber, #14868) [Link]
I don't think the "war" is anywhere near won -- in fact I'd say just the opposite: it seems like it's in serious danger of being completely lost -- for users.
It's true that the tools *developers* depend on, for development, are overwhelmingly open source. However, the tools *users* depend on (that is: gmail, facebook, etc) are overwhelmingly closed source (even though they're often internally based heavily upon open source software).
And as more and more kinds of tools are moving to the web, that's true more and more, even for users of Linux, who previously had been using almost wholly open source software.
The trouble with firmware Posted Jan 10, 2011 16:16 UTC (Mon) by jwarnica (subscriber, #27492) [Link]
Perhaps you are proving my unstated point. The number of fronts is expanding, and RMS is spending his time on a really very minor issue. He has really lost all perspective. Or rather, his perspective has remained the same, and once was mostly relevant.
He doesn't use the web (http://lwn.net/Articles/262570/) and I remember, I think from early Playstation 3 days, him admitting ignorances of the very concept of a gaming console. Not of Linux on the PS3, which might get a pass, but of being intentionally ignorant of the existence of non-general purpose electronic devices. He is simply out of touch with how regular people, and for that matter, regular geeks, use and interact with computers.
Basically all hardware uses microcode, and has for ever. To me, firmware is a minor, near irrelevant point. But even if I was to grant it was important, this strategy is the akin to plowing salt into your own fields and retreating from the land you have destroyed. Maybe we can shelf this point for a while, and worry about Facebook, and not OpenID, becoming the SSO/AuthN standard?
Political or spiritual advisor - maybe. Tactician, not at all.
The trouble with firmware Posted Jan 11, 2011 3:15 UTC (Tue) by quotemstr (subscriber, #45331) [Link] Simone de Beauvoir once said, "If you live long enough, you'll see that every victory turns into a defeat."We're definitely experiencing a retrenchment of proprietary software, primarily in the form of "app stores" and Tivoized devices. This model has been lucrative, and is actually far more frightening than the boxed-software model that originally motivated RMS and inspires free software. Like any successful disruptive technology, the new proprietry software will grow to consume the market. It will be much more difficult for free software to gain a foothold when a few powerful vendors can not only forbid the distribution of software, but send existing programs on users' devices down the memory hole. It will be interesting to watch, if nothing else.
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