The trouble with firmware

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.