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Update On OpenBSD Firmware Activism
putko writes "Here's an update on the OpenBSD firmware activism. Basically, Intel says no. Plenty of contact info, in case you want to write someone an email or a phone call.
As Theo writes, 'Without
these firmware files included in OpenBSD, users must go do some
click-through license at some web site to get at the files. Without
those files, these devices are just bits of metal, plastic, and sand.'" While I applaud the notion behind Freer distribution (as in beer) it's also highly probable that Intel doesn't have much ground make them freer - we've seen this before on machines like the HP nw8000; basically, the wireless stuff is owned by someone else, licensed by Intel. That's not to say that the fight isn't worth fighting for freer distribution - it is. But if you want to make your voice heard, remember to be effective advocate.
Perhaps it's just me, but I think it would have been useful and rather painless to include the word "Centrino" somewhere in that article so that people who aren't intimately familiar with OpenBSD would know what we were talking about without having to guess (or read 2/3s of the thing before they actually see the word "wireless").
"Mod, mod, mod...and another troll bites the dust."
Is that supposed to be a sentence, or has Hemos been playing around with the Monkey / Shakespeare Simulator again?
Intel to speak to them, they are going to need a medium.
The simple and most obvious solution to my mind is.
a: Email in a polite manner an Intel representative, explaining that in light of their refusal to cooperate with a freer use of hardware you bought or would have bought that you will vote with your feet and use a competitor, who will comply with non-restrictive use.
b: Then actually vote with your feet.
I can't see, _how_ exactly Intel can't redistribute it's own firmware, under any license it likes. We could speculate as to some _evil_ empire requiring Intel to rescrictive agreements, but, I think that, the reality is, that a company the size of Intel, probably to a large extent has home grown products virtually everywhere.
Base case Intel won't cooperate and won't give reasons for non cooperation, there is _no_ reason to ascribe any frustrated alutristic intentions on their part, by some external evil.
Is there a link somewhere, for a list of cards which will work, with Free as in speech Operating systems?
wireless, one must jump through some hoops to obtain firmware to use it with BSD.
. It's not like it's unavailable.
The referenced commentary relates the obvious solution for users who do not like this approach to distribution. "There is almost always choice".
WHich bring up another angle. It's hardware. I doubt Intel has any 'obligations to others' as far as making a detailed description of the hardware workings available. This would allow someone to write GPL firmware.
Or am I being naieve here?
Now I'm the grandest Tiger in the Jungle!
Part of me wants to back Theo arguing for distributable firmware - but another part of me feels that there is still a lot that can be achieved without requiring any re-licensing.
I'm currently stuck trying to get my Alcatel/Thompson "Speedtouch 330" (Revision 4) ADSL modem to work under FreeBSD 5.3. Downloading the 'firmware' was a pain but much of that could have been resolved with some good documentation and an MD5 to verify the correct version. Even now I have the device recognised following the handbook doesn't get me connected... and offers precious little information about how to make appropriate configuration.
I suppose the response might be that that OpenBSD would do this fine - though I chose FreeBSD as a result about concerns about OpenBSD support for the Atheros chipset in my Dlink DWL G520 PCI wireless net card (which is straightforward to configure in FreeBSD.) Aaaagh!
Ask nicely all you want and you're likely to be ignored. But let the buying public become a pain in the ass and they're likely to do something about it.
While it's pretty obvious that the companies that use these chipsets are essentially helpless and cannot release the firmware code for public distribution, if people are enough of a pain in the ass, it will prevent them from using such hardware/firmware in the future. Don't quit complaining or they will read it as acceptance.
if "the law" were the case Intel would be quick to SAY SO and thus
letting themselves off the hook completely.
they are being way to elusive about why they wont do it.
And it would the fault of that someone. You can also build RF equipment with resistors, transistors, etc., but we don't blame the suppliers.
They are NOT asking to open source the driver(s), but to allow free redistribution of the binary firmware.
Bullshit.
What they are basically not satisfied with is that the firmware is not available under freely redistributable terms. It is not illegal to redistribute a binary firmware under a freely redistributable license.
What the hell is wrong with giving a freely redistributable binary only firmware to the OSS community so that they can use a open source driver?
"It took Intel about two weeks to come back and say that they cannot give us freer redistribution rights." [4th paragraph, first line.]
9 994542424009&w=2
http://marc.theaimsgroup.com/?l=openbsd-misc&m=10
well yes, but if you've got a 802.11g wireless device, that device is only meant to operate on a specific frequency range, and nothing more. why not restrict the range in hardware instead of software, and then there's no need for keeping the firmware under wraps, because there's no way of creating a general purpose RF transmitter/receiver using the firmware?
Please mod this up. The BSD team only wants the binary firmware to be freed, not the source, so it can be distributed with the rest of the *BSD system. The firmware is loaded to the hardware every time it's restarted in order for it to work. No one wants the source code for it; it's not needed.
All of this mess for scraping a couple of bucks on an onboard EEPROM, but still, Intel's position doesn't seem reasonable.
Dude, did you even understand the thing, this is slashdot I am asking too much. No one asked intel to opensource anything, they just asked for a more flexible way of distributing FIRMWARE.
> Intel knows what would happen if the firmware was given to OSS community. Someone, somewhere would think a general purpose RF transmiter/reciever would be cool, and make it.
Nonsense. Nothing prevent you to get those firmware *now* (in fact, you are required to get them to make your device work, and intel don't prevent you to do this, but you have to click 'I Agree' ). What theo wants is the right to distribute them, the right to make OpenBSD work out-of-the-box with intel chipsets.
Of course, some big player, with a name starting with 'M' and ending in 't' happens to have a lot of leverage on intel, and don't want free OSes to easily work out-of-the-box on any hardware.
Some of our most vocal proponents, such as ESR, RMS, and Linus, have somewhat taken on this responsibility, but even they are flamed and criticized.
Holding our most vocal proponents to be above criticism is an example of exactly the sort of mindless zealotry that epitomizes bad advocacy.
They should not, of course, be flamed, but critcised with professional politness where they are deserving of it, and everyone is deserving of it at one time or another.
When Neils Bohr went to Los Alamos during the Manhatten Project he spent a lot of time talking to Feynman, who, at the time, was a pretty minor figure who hadn't even finished his doctorate work yet.
Why? Because he was the only one there unafraid to forthrightly tell the Great One his ideas were stupid when they were.
Good leaders like that sort of thing. It makes their own advocay stronger. Only bad leaders hold themselves as above admission of error.
Yeah, I see the idea that Joe was driving at here, but he needs to go back rework that bit, as it came out very, very wrong, suggesting that we should all show a mindless unity when it comes to our public front
There's a word for that: zealotry.
And it's all about free as in speech, isn't it?
Besides, from what I've seen, Linus, ESR and RMS are well able to stand up for themselves, and rather entertaining while they do it, even if you disagree with them on some point or other.
KFG
"Most users ever online was 469, 12 Minutes Ago at 10:32."
So 24 comments, and 469 blokes actually RTFA.
The FCC has mandated that only certain spectrums can be used by non-licensed individuals. Which only applies within the U.S.A. Other countries = other rules. Someone in a country ( where it is allowed ) will eventually reverse engineer stuff like this, and then the cat will be out of the bag anyway, and Intel ends up only looking like an asshole.
The Slashdot writeup is, once again, very misleading. It specifically mentioned free as in speech. If I hadn't already learned about the story from other sources, I too would conclude that they wanted something open-sourced. However, all the OpenBSD project wants is that it be freely redistributable. That isn't free as in speech at all.
The point right now is not, "will Intel do the Right Thing", since they probably have agreed not to, but will Intel (and others) see a benefit in working to change that situation, both in present circumstances and in future contract negotiations? People who want a more open firmware environment probably won't get what they want today, but we need to see if we can get some of the Big Boys to see profit in making it happen tomorrow.
Lets really give big bro' a wedgie and rev up the open hardware movement again. He'll be so frantic to squash that, he won't have time to wage disinformation wars against open source! heh
. php?p=210686#post210686 .
Raise your level of consciousness -- become aware of disinformation campaigns being waged through the media and the internet: http://www.uspoliticsonline.com/forums/showthread
of course, intel is very nearly like microsoft.
each has competition that they either don't
like to acknowledge, or are willing to use
whatever means necessary (FUD, IP, etc) in a
vain attempt to maintain market share.
intel's off-again/on-again stance regarding the
inclusion of WiFi in their Centrino product does
not inspire any longterm confidence in their
commitments (just as with microsoft's commitment
to data security). it is all about market share,
and the quest for the almighty buck.
what is really needed is a F/OSS project dedicated
to hardware that the commercial vendors consider
too valuable as IP to make available. the ready
availability of hybrid analog/digital chip cores,
as well as the very capable current gen FPGAs,
the two biggest sore points for F/OSS support
could eventually be open source -- video and
WiFi should be the initial targets, IMHO.
Cost. It's cheaper to do as much as possible in software. No manufacturing cost, and no disposition when you design a new version.
Wow ... I can't believe I'm actually giving the FCC a free pass...
The FCC somehow exerting some pressure has nothing to do with this.
The FCC does not prohibit the sale of devices. What they do prohibit is using the devices in a disruptive way.
It is perfectly legal for Intel to sell and give away the firmware. They are just bullshitting for various reasons.
It's much like P2P in a way. It's not illegal to make it, but some uses of it are prohibited (not that I agree)
vodka, straight up, thank you!
Vendors that are OEMing components have a choice of components, just as consumers have a choice of vendor. If there is sufficient backlash against a component choice that limits consumers' ability to use the products they purchase, vendors will begin to select more "open" component manufacturers.
No matter what your choice of OS, this is a good thing. It prevents the premature obsolescence caused by vendors dropping support after a few months - I've seen this happen in Windows XP and MacOS. While this situation may prevent a Linux user from purchasing and using a given product, it also makes other OS users subject to abandonment.
Consumer protection groups are apparently powerless to protect consumers from this type of fraud, at least for now. The best thing we as technically informed individuals can do it make sure that the word gets out on products in this category.
If the products are not attractive to consumers because of their limited support life or OS choice restrictions, then vendors will put pressure on the supply channel to change the status quo.
Can You Say Linux? I Knew That You Could.
> basically, the wireless stuff is owned by someone
> else, licensed by Intel.
That's your guess - but Intel declined to comment on that.
IMO, that's really too much BS'ing for such a little piece of code.
The reason why someone might want to include the firmware in the distribution is (perhaps) to allow network-installs via wireless.
If you're only net-connection is via a wireless nic, you can't go to some website and download it first....
Rainer
Windows 2000 - from the guys who brought us edlin
No? Ah, well, just a thought...
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
Get a number of OSS organizations/communities together, and apprach all the mainstream wireless vendors with an offer for free advertising and/or status as the 'recommended' or even 'official' wireless vendor/brand for that organization/community to the first vendor to *fully* open their hardware and provide full free distribution rights to all required components/firmware/whatever. I'm sure there are at least some vendors who would be pleased as punch to have places like slashdot recommending them.
Then they should make sure the hardware itself is not capable of monitoring illegal frequencies. Someone could reverse engineer the existing drivers to modify the behavior
http://spamdecoy.net - free throwaway anonymous email - avoid spam!
Simple solution for me - I'm just not going to buy Intel wireless products. Fortunately it's a big enough market that it's fairly easy not to care about them. In my own little world I can pretend my purchasing power actually means something to a giant, multinational corporation.
----- obSig
But is that freer as in freer breer or freer as in freer spreech?
(as in beer)
Oh, I see. But isn't the firmware available at no charge, but with a restrictive click-through? Doesn't that make it a free as in speech problem?
Fnord.
Fortunately, you don't need flowery prose or concise diction to be an effective advocate for change. In fact, you don't even need to be able to speak or write in English or any other language. All you need to do is keep your wallet in your pocket: if you buy a product that needs firmware, and it's not available on terms you can accept, you are part of the problem. Like it or not, once you buy a product, you have no further influence on its maker. They've got your money and they really don't care what you think. Do the smart thing: don't buy it.
Chances are high that there's a criss-crossing web of cross-licensed patents which prevents second-order licensing (i.e. making the "thing" - in this case firmware) freely available to people who want to make it freely available - recursively.
As an aside, I imagine that's going to be a strategy that Microsoft is going to use in the future to fight Linux.
I would argue that Centrino is a commercial brand introduced by Intel to: :-)
a) improve Intel wireless capabilities in their laptops
b) sell more notebooks
c) confuse customers
d) let me to write this comment on Slashot
Choose your option.
Check atheros paper about this topic: Centrino vs Pentium or this other page En qué consiste exactamente la tecnología Centrino?
because the laws restricting the use on specific frequencies are different in other countries.
You know, we've all heard it: Sorry, your ATI card cannot run X accelerated on your computer, and the svideo port is just a lump of metal because we licenced that technology from someone else and cannot redistribute it, even though our drivers won't work in your computer. Sorry, your nvidia card won't work in the latest kernel and would be useless to any kernel developer, because we licenced that technology from someone else and cannot redistribute it...
I'm sure I could go on, but you get the point. Imagine going out for dinner and it makes you sick because it has *shrug* powdered peanuts in it. Next time, you ask for no peanuts, only to be told "Sorry, we licenced this recipe from somebody else and do not have permission to vary it, even though the current version is useless to you". There is no way you would put up with that, at the least you would walk out.
Yet for some reason in IT we accept that excuse as if nvidia hadn't just negotiated the contract that does not permit them to redistribute only weeks beforehand. Nvidia, ATI and intel are only getting away with this excuse because we tolerate it. If we instead refuse to buy the products then you can bet the next time they negotiate licencing, all the problems disappear.
You might think we are a too small group to make a difference in this regard, but you'd be wrong. You would be right that few people use linux, and even fewer user OpenBSD, but what propotion of those people have strong influence over large IT budgets? Viewed in terms of dollars controlled instead of products sold and suddenly you're talking much bigger bikkies.
But where do they go? One small aprt of this motherboard set isn't available, but the rest is better documented and supported in linux than ANY other chipset I know. Speaking as someone who still has a few raw nerves over an nvidia purchase, I have to say this is trivial. Compare the documentation intel provides on its chipsets to those provided by ANY other major manufacturer and intel looks mighty damn friendly to the OSS community.
Vote with your feet? So you think it's a threat to say "well, rather than click on your wireless license I'll just go BUY a different wireless card to go in this laptop?" Or are you talking about buying a laptop NOT based on an intel chipset?
If that were the case, I'd say it's going to be much harder to vote with those feet after you've shot them off.
What are you talking about as a responsibility? And where, exactly, can I find an example of RMS advocating for people to spread copies of non-free software to make wireless devices work more conveniently?
Digital Citizen
It already works this way. Just look at the low value and reputation of Winmodems. You can't sell one of those for more than ten buck. If something won't spin up and work with Knoppix, I don't want it. Sure, I can ignore some non working hardware if there's a way to fix it, but the research is a drag and the value is substantially lower to me. The development of working free drivers is a risk so I consider non free hardware disposable junk and tell people so.
I tell my Windoze using friends to avoid hardware like that if they care about keeping the thing longer than Microsoft's two year upgrade cycle. Their risk is compounded and much higher. If there is zero chance of them switching to free software, there's about zero chance they will consider the hardware usable in two years. It's worth is reduced to toilet paper, just like that. Most people have been the victims of the upgrade cycle by now and know what I'm talking about.
Every way, the hardware maker loses. Some people don't mind spending money on disposable hardware, but they are a decided minority. Worse for the hardware maker, these people put significant downward pressure on the price of new hardware by throwing away old stuff that people like me can use with a few awkward work arounds. I'll take and use broken equipment if the price is right. Most people don't want to spend a thousand dollars on something that won't work in two years and they are very angry at hardware makers for this kind of thing. Hardware makers that get a junk reputation suffer.
If Intel wants to make their wireless the next Winmodem, they will lose.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
FreeBSD, Stealth-Growth Open Source Project (June 2004)
Nearly 2.5 Million Active Sites running FreeBSD (June 2004)
"FreeBSD has dramatically increased its market penetration over the last year."
FreeBSD, Stealth-Growth Open Source Project (June 2004)
Nearly 2.5 Million Active Sites running FreeBSD (June 2004)
"FreeBSD has dramatically increased its market penetration over the last year."
Don't know why this AC was moderated as Flambait. He's right. I no longer purchase Intel products and will recommend against them at work.
The meme police, They live inside of my head
FreeBSD, Stealth-Growth Open Source Project (June 2004)
Nearly 2.5 Million Active Sites running FreeBSD (June 2004)
"FreeBSD has dramatically increased its market penetration over the last year."
FreeBSD, Stealth-Growth Open Source Project (June 2004)
Nearly 2.5 Million Active Sites running FreeBSD (June 2004)
"FreeBSD has dramatically increased its market penetration over the last year."
FreeBSD, Stealth-Growth Open Source Project (June 2004)
Nearly 2.5 Million Active Sites running FreeBSD (June 2004)
"FreeBSD has dramatically increased its market penetration over the last year."
FreeBSD, Stealth-Growth Open Source Project (June 2004)
Nearly 2.5 Million Active Sites running FreeBSD (June 2004)
"FreeBSD has dramatically increased its market penetration over the last year."
"Hardware met Software on the road to Changtse. Software said: ``You are Yin and I am Yang. If we travel together we will become famous and earn vast sums of money.'' And so the set forth together, thinking to conquer the world.
Presently they met Firmware, who was dressed in tattered rags and hobbled along propped on a thorny stick. Firmware said to them: ``The Tao lies beyond Yin and Yang. It is silent and still as a pool of water. It does not seek fame, therefore nobody knows its presence. It does not seek fortune, for it is complete within itself. It exists beyond space and time.''
Software and Hardware, ashamed, returned to their homes.
"
(Credit: Tao of Programming)
SSL Certificate
"...we've seen this before on machines like the HP nw8000.."
Picking on the NW8000 is poor. At least with the HP commercial notebooks, you can CHOOSE either the Intel or the Atheros MiniPCI cards.
To set the record straight, Centrino is a brand that's applied when a notebook has three things:
1. Intel Pentium-M
2. Intel Chipset
3. Intel PRO2100/2200 Wireless
That's Centrino. The NW8000 uses a MiniPCI slot, just like a lot of other notebooks. HP offers the option to go with the Intel cards, or with Atheros a/b/g cards (the HP W400 and W500 cards). When you order the W500 instead of the Intel card, you no longer get a Centrino sticker on your notebook. That's it. It's still the same chipset and processor.
Honestly, this hub-bub is all silly. Get yourself a notebook with a MiniPCI slot, and get your own card. Want to tell Intel that they should open their drivers? Don't buy their shit. That'll tell 'em.
Same here!
AMD doesn't make their own wireless.
I'm sick of following my dreams - I'm just going to ask them where they're going and hook up with them later.
One more crippling bombshell hit the already beleaguered *BSD community when IDC confirmed that *BSD market share has dropped yet again, now down to less than a fraction of 1 percent of all servers. Coming on the heels of a recent Netcraft survey which plainly states that *BSD has lost more market share, this news serves to reinforce what we've known all along. *BSD is collapsing in complete disarray, as fittingly exemplified by failing dead last in the recent Sys Admin comprehensive networking test.
You don't need to be the Amazing Kreskin to predict *BSD's future. The hand writing is on the wall: *BSD faces a bleak future. In fact there won't be any future at all for *BSD because *BSD is dying. Things are looking very bad for *BSD. As many of us are already aware, *BSD continues to lose market share. Red ink flows like a river of blood.
FreeBSD is the most endangered of them all, having lost 93% of its core developers. The sudden and unpleasant departures of long time FreeBSD developers Jordan Hubbard and Mike Smith only serve to underscore the point more clearly. There can no longer be any doubt: FreeBSD is dying.
Let's keep to the facts and look at the numbers.
OpenBSD leader Theo states that there are 7000 users of OpenBSD. How many users of NetBSD are there? Let's see. The number of OpenBSD versus NetBSD posts on Usenet is roughly in ratio of 5 to 1. Therefore there are about 7000/5 = 1400 NetBSD users. BSD/OS posts on Usenet are about half of the volume of NetBSD posts. Therefore there are about 700 users of BSD/OS. A recent article put FreeBSD at about 80 percent of the *BSD market. Therefore there are (7000+1400+700)*4 = 36400 FreeBSD users. This is consistent with the number of FreeBSD Usenet posts.
Due to the troubles of Walnut Creek, abysmal sales and so on, FreeBSD went out of business and was taken over by BSDI who sell another troubled OS. Now BSDI is also dead, its corpse turned over to yet another charnel house.
All major surveys show that *BSD has steadily declined in market share. *BSD is very sick and its long term survival prospects are very dim. If *BSD is to survive at all it will be among OS dilettante dabblers. *BSD continues to decay. Nothing short of a miracle could save *BSD at this point in time. For all practical purposes, *BSD is dead.
Fact: *BSD is dying