Submitted by “The Debian project has now announced that from the release of Squeeze (Debian 6.0) their GNU/Linux kernels will be available without the non-free blobs.”
“The Debian project has now announced that from the release of Squeeze (Debian 6.0) their GNU/Linux kernels will be available without the non-free blobs.”
Binary firmware drivers really have nothing to do with the kernel (other than that the kernel loads them into the hardware).
On the other hand, reading the article the author seems to confuse kernel drivers with firmware:
This is complaint is most often, and rightly, directed at kernel *drivers*, not binary firmware. To be honest, I don’t know of any hardware manufacturers that have open-source firmware.
And now he’s talking about software…
You know, I really don’t think it’s that difficult to understand the difference between firmware and drivers.
Really??? The community has created open-source firmware replacements? Uh no, that’s *drivers*, really.
After reading this “article” I really don’t know if Debian is going to stop including binary blob drivers or binary blob firmware.
Seriosuly, wtf. This isn’t rocket science.
Edited 2011-01-25 23:10 UTC
LinkSys release theirs under the GPL – or at least they did last time I looked.
Yes but in the context of GNU/Linux distribution philosophy. Licencing philosophies are easier to describe in terms people are used to – software for example.
Again routers are a good example. Community created firmware has existed for some time.
To ease your confusion, perhaps you could have read the Debian news announcement linked to in the opening paragraph which specifically names firmware.
Why? I’ts not my job to write an accurate article.
Maybe the author should have taken the time to write one and I wouldn’t have to look elsewhere to figure out wth he’s talking about.
On a related note, the linksys example doesn’t count since we are talking about hardware for computers here, not standalone units. Please let me know, for example, what network vendors have released their card firmware as open source and what open source firmware the community have created for this. Debian’s statement isn’t even about having open source firmware, it’s about unclear and non-acceptable copyrights.
Card firmware? Hmm I’m not sure but as an example, Intel released the ipw2100 chipset driver & firmware (used in mainboards and cards I believe) http://ipw2100.sourceforge.net/“>on .
In http://newscenter.ti.com/Blogs/newsroom/archive/2010/06/22/ti-s-new… they say that Texas Instruments sells “LaunchPad, a complete development kit” and they talk about:
– flash programming, firmware debugging.
– Demo firmware to demonstrate the use of on-chip peripherals, including 10-bit ADC, comparators and internal temperature sensor.
– Open-source design allows developers to create their own hardware based on LaunchPad.
But I’m no expert, maybe someone with experience could confirm if the final firmware is really debuggable and programmable.