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Theo de Raadt On Firmware Activism
An anonymous reader writes "KernelTrap has an insightful interview with OpenBSD creator Theo de Raadt, discussing their recent activism to try and open up wireless chipsets. In the interview, Theo discusses what has been accomplished so far, the difficulties involved, and why such efforts are important to all free and open source operating systems."
Isn't there a problem here, that while a closed source redistributable binary is fine for use with *BSD, it cannot be linked into the Linux kernel because the GPL requires you to distribute source for anything that is so linked...?
...if only to see a pic of the guy who causes such a ruckus.
Otherwise, the interview is extremely tame. He alludes to the "corporate ways of Linux vendors", but doesn't give vent to any interesting rants.
De Raadt raises one interesting question, though, when he says, "in other cases we have had to resort to activism. An example of this was Qlogic...for a few years we did ship this code without being aware of the issue. But after a few mails to Art at Qlogic, and a threat to remove their code from our upcoming release, they decided to let us include the firmware in our operating systems."
The question is: how is this "activism"? He states that they used Qlogic SCSI firmware inadvertantly, and when asked to stop, threatened to comply with the request. That's "activism"?
Whatever one may think on Theo, I think that he is right here: firmware which cannot be redistributed by distribution are a *pain* for the users.
I hope that Linux&FreeBSD users will join this movement because the more users requests hardware-makers to allow redistribution of firmware, the better!
Also, I think that this movement should not be restricted to wireless HW, I have a speedtouch ADSL modem where there is a similar situation: firmware may not be redistributed.
This is very annoying when you want to install a distribution.. I think that Mandrake managed to get the rights to redistribute this firmware, but they shouldn't be the only one to have this right..
Why do you want the Official CD-ROM, if you're not going to pay for it? Go download an unofficial one, and stop caring so much.
In fact, they lose money on having to develop the firmware. They would be better of if they released the specs of what hardware is in there, and had the F/OSS community develop the firmware and drivers.
They won't do that, though. I've heard people say that they are afraid this will make it easier to reverse-engineer there hardware, and that is somehow a Bad Thing. Personally, I think it's easier to design hardware from scratch than to look at the interface exposed by another piece of hardware and design your hardware around it - but that's just my naive view.
Please correct me if I got my facts wrong.
IIRC it's not up to them, because some FCC rules prevent completely OS firmware drivers.
The FCC is basically afraid that someone could modify the code in a way which would lead to a wlan device operating out of spec.
But that's just what I read some time ago...
I don't read replies by ACs.
Somebody correct me if I'm wrong, but my understanding is that FCC regulations come into play here. These devices are considered wireless radios, and they are approved by the FCC to operate on specific frequencies with specific power levels. Having open sourced firmware could allow modifications to these parameters, such that the devices no longer conform to FCC regulations. This is why several wireless chipsets have open source drivers, but none have open source firmware. Thus, the best we can do at the moment is to pursue "free" firmware, even if it is closed source.
Isn't that what we are all saying is good about OSS/Free as in speech software? Value added development. We all start from the same base and if you want to make money/kudos/whatever then add value by producing a bundle/ISO that targets a particular market.
They write the software and bundle it up in a way they and we percieve as 'adding value'. You can still d/l the whole kit yourself and value add for re-distribution and give that away free. Just don't reduce the value of anothers work by giving away their hard work if they ask you not to.
If I ever do want the Official CD-ROM, I will pay for it.
But don't call the thing 100% free when it isn't.
So why are there drivers for Atheros based cards?
I see your point, but think your reasoning is flawed. This CD is only really 'official' in that procedes from its sale help fund the OS development process. Theo doesn't say that it's any better than any of the other ISOs out there that you can download -- he just says that if you want to help OpenBSD development, that's the one you should buy.
It's up to the users to determine that their modifications are legal. There's nothing stopping companies from putting out the source code of firmware.
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
and they are approved by the FCC to operate on specific frequencies with specific power levels.
It's like the days of CB radio. Early PLL sets had an easy to access PLL divide by N counter. Feeding it vales other than what the dial provided permitted illegal operation. Later to prevent lawsuits, the divide by N counter had a pre-programmed interface front end. The channel number was input and the divide by N was done internally. It made for more complex chips, but made out of band operation much easier.
Some WiFi chip manufactures may have the same choices. The user interface software may take the chosen channel selection and set the chip PLL to the correct divide by N ratio. The advantage is if later the FCC opens more frequencies, a simple driver update will put the chip on the new frequencies. With OSS, renagades may ditch the FCC permitted channels and find a "channel" without neithborhood interferance and not seen by the wardrivers for additional security. The chip manufacture could be held liable for enabling the out of band operation. The chip manufacture could do like the CB radio chip manufactures later did and do the divide by N table in the chip instead of in the driver software.. Now you have a chip that can become instantly obsolete if/when the FCC opens more bandwidth. The chip costs more to manufacture to boot. In a comptetive market this is a bad thing.
The truth shall set you free!
I see your point, and you're half-right. The equipment is type-accepted to operate at a certain power level on a certain frequency, but there is nothing in the FCC regs stating that the firmware has to be closed source. After all, there is really nothing (except the fear of a hefty fine and/or jail time) preventing a person from buying a type-accepted radio at Wal-Mart and modifying it to put out more power, or to transmit on a different frequency band. These radios are not "black boxes", so neither should be the firmware.
My own thoughts on as to why they are closed source leans more towards trade secrets.
No matter where you go... there you are.
Nothing legal is stopping you, but doing so will put you on the enemy list in the small OBSD community.
Right. That's why Daniel Hartmeier (OpenBSD developer of pf fame), posted torrents to undeadly and slashdot of i386 binaries.
The fact is, they DO want the OS to be free and as such, make BINARIES available for free via ftp and there are tons of mirrors.
They know that people will pummel the ftp server once it is made available, so torrent seems like a great dissemination method to me. I clicked on Daniels torrent link and within about 5 seconds I was downloading at 150 kilobytes/sec (my ADSL caps at about 170) for the entire duration of the very short download.
I, like others I know of, buy CD's and also happily download the files before the CD arrives to my house. I'm okay with that. I'd just donate the money to them, but the CD's and shirts are just too cool to miss out on. Now that I am making good money for the foreseeable future, I think I will also be donating good money too.
a full operating system that installs in minutes.
/, swap, /usr, /var, /tmp and /home.
/etc/rc.conf and change xdm=NO to xmd="" to start X at startup. Add users, set softupdates in /etc/fstab, etc, and enjoy. Occasionally cvs up'ing the source to patch some obscure bug that is unlikely to become more than an annoying little short lived DoS, then in 6 months, tar my ~ and some /etc up, re-install from scratch and enjoy.
This is no exageration either. I've been using OpenBSD for about 6 years. It typically takes me about 5 minutes to install OpenBSD, with seperate
And, after it reboots... I type startx and X comes up. No problems.
Then I just go into
I love OpenBSD. Seriously, if I had a shitload of money, enough to secure my future with a home of my own, etc, with lots over, I'd be giving them lots of money. The future is going to be dominated by computers (it already pretty much is), so I think a free, secure OS is really important for everyone fortunate enough to own a computer.