Well, if we accept something is a twisted way... we still accept something...
Well, if we accept something is a twisted way... we still accept something...
Posted Sep 29, 2011 13:24 UTC (Thu) by khim (subscriber, #9252)In reply to: The other side of the story by coriordan
Parent article: Papering over a binary blob
Put another way, there are three types of software: non-upgradeable blobs, upgradeable blobs, and free software. If we say that we accept the second type, why would device manufacturers ever give us the last type?
Good question. But here we have another case: firmware from second class (very firmly in second class - it includes mini-RTOS) is accepted by pretending it's firmware of the first class (this binary blob was never intended to be fixed and unupgradeable; the only reason it's not updated is the fact that it's old one and thus almost unsopported). If we accept firmware of the second class by doing the hard work of crippling our devices and pretending it's firmware of the first class, they why manufacturers should bother with the last class?>
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