Re:“Blob-free OpenBSD kernel needed”
by ergethaxsd on Saturday June 06, 2015 @04:40PM
(#9672183)
I don't think it's counterproductive at all and we actually agree in a sense. In a sense, opaque blobs are the default license category. Moving past that, if we can acknowledge that unambiguously (positively-stated) non-proprietary licenses are worth favouring, it is worth differentiating as a means to an end of open hardware.
For example, I would appreciate a "noblob" kernel option. If my system doesn't boot, I may reverse that choice, but I can also (still) hope for, and request, useful information along the way so I can choose the closest to ideal (for me) from the options available.
At some point it becomes a "if you don't like it, submit a patch" scenario, which is fine. It is more likely to lead to that when the response isn't overwhelmingly dismissive or insulting.
You already have such option. On Linux, you simply don't install or remove stuff from /lib/firmware
However, ideologically it doesn't make any sense, since when your kernel is booted you're most likely already past the loading of lots of non-free blobs in lots of chips. Kernel deals only with the ones that don't have internal memory to store them.
Or maybe you need some custom, proprietary solution to compile it that even the company that developed this hardware have no rights to redistribute?
Or maybe even the company you bought that hardware from has no idea about the source code or firmware, because they simply used some chipset available on the market?
Or...
It's really counterproductive to differentiate it in this way. It doesn't help the cause at all. The license of firmware blob is really not a kernels issue. It's a lower layer - you can go for that when you start requiring all your hardware to be open. Otherwise, it's like bashing Mozilla due to Firefox not providing an option to load only Creative Commons or similarly free content from the Web.
The kernel is here just to upload a bitstream to memory of some device. For kernel, it doesn't matter if it's open or not. It's just set of bits needed to be sent somewhere, nothing more, nothing less. It not like a typical software, as it's not even executed on your system.