Now this is interesting. We see what is at its core a very valid concern, in practice not a problem to anyone, and, thanks to the tone of the press release, close to trolling. The Free Software Foundation Latin America is complaining about something that has been known for a while - there is some non-Free code stuck in the Linux kernel (mostly firmware). A valid issue of concern from an idealogical viewpoint, but sadly, the tone of the press release turns this valid concern into something close to trolling.
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Member since:2007-09-22
Member since:2010-03-02
A lot of the basic functionality is written in microcode/firmware.. and rewriting this manually for every device in existence would be unbelievably tedious, and for smaller microcontrollers the resulting "free" replacements would probably be identical given the constraints of the hardware.
Documentation for writing drivers and loading firmware is what is needed from companies.
As has been repeated here, firmware is not the same as a binary blob kernel driver.
Edited 2010-11-10 00:17 UTC
Member since:2008-07-15
Not looking to provide flame bate (though this will probably be interpreted as such by some) but doesn't that pretty much describe the FSF these days? There was a time when the FSF, and those involved with it, contributed a lot of valuable things to the F/OSS landscape. Is that time past? All I see from them now is new licenses and complaints when people don't follow what the FSF thinks they should be doing. Quite frankly, I find them annoying. Do they do anything productive these days? That's a genuine question, I'd really like to know since all I see from them lately is bitching and moaning about one thing or another.
Member since:2010-05-06
The guy that wrote this announcement, Alexandre Oliva, is maintainer of Linux-libre, GCC developer, and Red Hat employee. He does lot of things.
As for FSF in general, they do lot of things too. Reason why you don't know about it is the fact that they don't brag like some. They don't rename operating systems to their firs names, they don't name VCS after themselves, they don't re-brand other people's work. Usually their work get re-branded by others, and that is reason you don't hear about them. Also, they don't claim they are Gods and they don't hold trademarks on names of programs they write. Guess who does all of the above?
FSF only raises issue when there is something critical for all users. They try to protect your freedom. You don't know how free firmware is important until you have a device that doesn't work and mfr tells you that they don't care. But no good deed goes unpunished, so those who defend your freedom get called whiners. But announcement was not trolling. Next release of Linux kernel will have firmware clearly separated, and I think this has to do with this announcement. It would make job easier for Linux-Libre folks, since non-free firmware will be easier to locate and rewrite. Somebody has to do that stuff, or some day mfrs might decide to enforce copyrights on firmware against GNU/Linux, and then Linux kernel will have no hardware support. Then you feel sorry that you bashed people who tried to help. But it will be too late. It is really easy to be "moderate" or "pragmatist" when you know there is someone else to take a hard line and do dirty job, no matter what you say. Without people like RMS and Alexandre Oliva, we wouldn't discuss about free firmware now. We would be running everything proprietary, and maybe even lack right to read:
http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html
Btw, I am not trolling. If I am, then I got trolled into trolling :-)
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Member since:
2005-07-11
Exactly. It's a lot of hullabaloo over nothing.