On Thu, 2015-06-04 at 02:52 +0200, Adam Borowski wrote:
> On Wed, Jun 03, 2015 at 06:18:37PM -0500, John Morris wrote:
> > Non-free software: NO, Firmware: YES. So ixnay on things like the Nvidia
> > drivers but yes on blobs. The reasoning on where to draw the line is
> > pretty clear cut.
>
> How exactly firmware is not software? Both are strings of bits encoding
> commands for a processor living in silicon you own.

So if the manufacturer puts the same firmware in an eeprom it isn't a
problem? Or the BIOS itself? Are you running a Free BIOS? Do YOU know
what your ACPI BIOS is doing right now? How about the CPU, those have
loadable bits now, all entirely undocumented and closed. And lets not
even open the can of worms over what Intel is doing lately in the of
'manageability.' I'm typing this on a Thinkpad, those have an entirely
separate sixteen bit SoC 'embedded controller' with it's own OS that I
have zero knowledge of what it is truly doing behind my back.

In a more perfect world I'd agree that all that stuff should be open
too, but it ain't, it ain't going to be. RMS managed to find -one-
oddball machine that meets his definition of Free, if the vendor of that
machine tried to sell them on the open market outside China they would
find few takers. Bunnie's Novena 'Open Laptop' has blobs and closed 3d
video drivers as well. Good luck tilting at this windmill.

Where we can and should draw the line is in the kernel's address space.
Blobs loaded into the kernel make the entire system untrustworthy and
unmaintainable in ways a firmware blob loaded at initialization into an
entirely different microcontroller managing WiFi doesn't. Not to
mention that for regulatory reasons most vendors just aren't going to
discuss the point with us. The situation stinks but changing it is
beyond our current capabilities.