Linux first to offer USB 3.0 driver (Linux Devices) [LWN.net]

Linux first to offer USB 3.0 driver (Linux Devices)

Posted Jun 13, 2009 16:26 UTC (Sat) by mikov (guest, #33179)
In reply to: Linux first to offer USB 3.0 driver (Linux Devices) by strcmp
Parent article: Linux first to offer USB 3.0 driver (Linux Devices)

The firmware runs within the Keyspan device, not the Linux kernel. It might as well be in a flash in the device, but that would increase the cost.

So, yes, requiring that this firmware be open source, given that there don't even exist free tools to compile it, is idiotic. It has absolutely no benefit for anybody. It is the same as requiring the design schematics for supported devices to be open source.

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Linux first to offer USB 3.0 driver (Linux Devices)

Posted Jun 13, 2009 16:47 UTC (Sat) by foom (subscriber, #14868) [Link] (3 responses)

It is the same as requiring the design schematics for supported devices to be open source.

I really wish this hadn't gone out of style. For the few devices I own that *do* have easily accessible electrical schematics and PCB layout images, it really makes a big difference to their repairability. It used to be standard practice to always provide schematics with electronics devices, but that doesn't seem to have translated into modern computer equipment.

Linux first to offer USB 3.0 driver (Linux Devices)

Posted Jun 13, 2009 17:11 UTC (Sat) by mikov (guest, #33179) [Link] (2 responses)

I agree 100% (although in practice SMT boards are probably very hard to repair).

But preventing the OS from running on non-free hardware?

Who prevents you from running the thing?

Posted Jun 14, 2009 8:08 UTC (Sun) by khim (subscriber, #9252) [Link] (1 responses)

But preventing the OS from running on non-free hardware?

If your hardware includes everything it needs - it can be considered black-box and used as such. If it needs something from an OS - this part should be hackable. Or else your OS includes some part which can not be supported (by Debian developers at least) - and Debian does not like it. Firefox was excluded from Debian using the same logic, it's not just about firmware.

Probably such blob can be put on web somewhere and then the device will only be supported till it's present on web? Also not a good idea: people will whine when device perfectly usable yesterday suddenly does not work. So the proper way, sadly, is to remove everything from distribution and give the end-user ability to download and install firmware. I think Debian work on the second part...

Who prevents you from running the thing?

Posted Jun 18, 2009 4:00 UTC (Thu) by BenHutchings (subscriber, #37955) [Link]

Yes, we are actively packaging non-free firmware so long as the licence clearly says we can do so. Unfortunately this does not seem to be the case for the Keyspan serial firmware, as the licence says:

Permission is hereby granted for the distribution of this firmware image as part of a Linux or other Open Source operating system kernel in text or binary form as required.

and we would be distributing separately from the kernel.