For what it's worth, Stallman thinks that firmware is an integral part of hardware, and doesn't seem to think of it in the same way as other software.

IIRC he thinks that if the code is updateable, it should be free and it should be possible to replace it with code of ones own creation, if so desired. Completely non-updatable firmware in ROMs he is OK with being non-free.

That's the problem. I understand and respect Richard Stallman, but I can't agree with him on this subject.

How can you know that firmware is "completely non-updateable"? You trust the vendor with that, there's no way to know for sure. What's more - recently (~1.5y ago) somebody figured out how to update firmware of microSD cards [1]. Thanks to him, if we want to apply FSF's point of view, microSD cards suddenly became unacceptable, non-free hardware, while before that blog post they were just fine.

I'm involved in development of Neo900 [2] phone and already had fair share of discussions about freedom and openness of components with various people. I was a part of Openmoko community in the past and remember the TI Calypso modem used inside Neo1973 and Neo Freerunner. At first they were non-updateable (for consumer), so were acceptable to RMS. Some time later Openmoko Inc. got firmware fixes for pretty annoying bugs like SIM compatibility and started trying to figure out how to distribute the updates. They obtained a license to redistribute the updater tool, provided the instructions and the firmware image. Suddenly, Neo Freerunner became non-free hw.

Then, some time later, partially thanks to Openmoko who provided the updater and instructions, OsmocomBB [3] was born (Harald Welte, who initiated OsmocomBB, also worked earlier in Openmoko). Suddenly Neo Freerunner became free again because there's a free firmware available for Calypso now.

So my device I was carrying in my pocket, without any my intervention, went from free to non-free and to free back again. Fun!

Also, as a user who cares about his freedom, I prefer to have a hardware with updateable or even entirely user provided non-free firmware than a black-box with the same non-free firmware inside, but not updateable. Of course over that I'll prefer a hw with open firmware, but in the case of the black box, there is even no hope that such a firmware will be provided in the future. And when at the same time you cannot be 100% sure that it really is non-updateable, then what's the advantage? I can't see any.

In theory, I can agree with FSF and RMS. In practice, hardware doesn't really work that way.

[1] http://www.bunniestudios.com/blog/?p=3554

[2] http://neo900.org/

[3] http://bb.osmocom.org/

Good point

And today, chances are the firmware is updatable, even if it's not documented/supported.

Except even firmware that comes with the hardware may be updatable somehow.

I believe that firmware should be free, but refusing to ship blobs for this reason, while still attempting to be compatible with hardware that buries them under the covers (even when the blobs not being shipped are updates for the very same hardware - e.g. all major x86 CPUs), is burying one's head in the sand. Would be more principled to avoid hardware with proprietary firmware entirely, and advocate for both documented hardware and 'free' (i.e. open HDL etc.) hardware.

Given the existence of Intel x86 microprocessor microcode updates Intel x86 chips are right out.

As someone who knows approximately jack shit about hardware and firmware issues, I appreciate the time he did waste explaining why he says the original poster was full of shit.