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Intel — Only "Open" For Business

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the call-to-action dept.

Michael Knudsen writes, "Intel still refuses to work with open source projects such that they can provide their users with proper support for Intel's hardware products. As he has done before, Theo de Raadt once again asks users to take action by contacting Intel, telling them what they think of their current policy of not releasing hardware documentation and granting open source projects the right to distribute hardware firmware with their products. Failing to do so only harms users in the way that they risk having unsupported or malfunctioning hardware in their operating system of choice." Read more below.

It's really important that people understand that Intel is only trying to cooperate just enough to make people believe that they're open and doing the right thing. Don't fool yourselves: They are not.

What we need all users of open source software to do is contact Intel and let them know what you think of their current behaviour. If you run a big department and chose another vendor's products over Intel's because it doesn't work in your operating system, let them know, along with how many units they could have sold you. If you are an end user who has had problems when using Intel hardware because of poor support, let them know.

Let them know that their current lack of support will only harm them in the long run because you will be avoiding their products. Let them know that you want your hardware to work out of the box when you have installed your operating system of choice, and how Intel is preventing this with their lack of support.

Intel is not doing you a favor by requiring you to go to a website and download firmware for your hardware. You paid for the hardware, and Intel is thanking you by making it difficult for you to use it. Let Intel know what you think of this.

20 of 213 comments (clear)

  1. damned if you do... by macadamia_harold · · Score: 4, Funny

    Failing to do so only harms users in the way that they risk having unsupported or malfunctioning hardware in their operating system of choice.

    So we get unsupported or malfunctioning hardware with our operating system of choice, or we get supported and functioning hardware with a malfunctioning operating system. cool.

    --
    Push Button, Receive Bacon
  2. Yes, but: by kripkenstein · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I couldn't agree more with the goal here, but the approach seems a bit unproductive. I refer to the parts like this:

    James is a big fat liar

    (It's in TFA, believe it or not.)

    This is no way to get the other side to play nicely with you.

    1. Re:Yes, but: by udippel · · Score: 3, Informative
      If you need to keep IP closed source (for example some whiz-bang algorithm), document the hardware sufficiently that the community can provide their own.


      James Ketrenos, Intel Open Source Technology Center

      Agreed, I wouldn't call him a big fat liar as long as I haven't given him the chance to respond and do something about the situation.
      I hope and guess this was done.
      James ?

    2. Re:Yes, but: by ari_j · · Score: 4, Funny
      It's ether that or Theo is a refugee from some parallel universe Bizzaro World, where "up yours, scumbags!" is a polite way to open a formal dialogue and "good morning, gentlemen" is a killing insult. One of the two, certainly.
      Well, he is Canadian.
    3. Re:Yes, but: by GauteL · · Score: 3, Insightful

      "well, theo deraadt seemed clearly pissed indeed, but was also smart enough to realise that, and for a correct way to contact intel, he suggests the careful post written by another person that was done to TI as an example how to write to Intel." .. and strangely enough stupid enough not to realise that everything he publishes on the Internet can have consequences. If Intel-executives have read this story (and it may have been presented to them by one of their employees) then no amount of polite letter from De Raadt is going to help, because the Intel people would have already made up their minds about De Raadt.

      His writing was unhelpful, unproductive, unprofessional immature, and downright slanderous.

    4. Re:Yes, but: by jketreno · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Well, if by 'giving him the chance to respond' you mean posting the original article to the net where he states what he stated, then yes.

      If, however, you mean that he engaged in a conversation with me where we discussed anything related to those slides (or anything else in the last year), then no.

      Oh well. At least my name will show up more on Google now :)

      James

  3. Be professional! by HRbnjR · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I tried to keep it short and to the point, my email to them read:

    Subject: Linux Wireless Firmware Distribution

    I was very happy to hear that Intel is working with the community to
    ensure that G965 graphics will work out of the box under Linux.

    I am very sad to hear that Intel isn't doing the same for their wireless
    products WRT freely distributable firmware.

    I am a developer in the Computing Services department at a 30 thousand
    plus student university. Community enabled Linux support is a huge
    factor in the purchasing decisions of our department.

    1. Re:Be professional! by arivanov · · Score: 4, Insightful

      There is a reason for that.

      2D (and 3D) algorithms are commodity, they are well known (most are published 20+ years ago) and large part of the card is designed towards a rather old, but still valid common standard (VESA). In addition to that there is no regulatory regime to deal with it. Having "super duper secrets" in a low-to-mid sector video parts makes no sense whatsoever.

      Wireless chipsets operate with a mix of commodity and private algorithms, there is no common spec regarding the way the platform sees them and there standards specify only the external side and nothing on the OS side. In addition to that there is list of Frequency Nazies to deal in every country. All of them insist that any power, frequency and tuning parameters are private and inaccessible to Joe Average Luser. In a modern chipset these are done in firmware and having them secret and limited makes all the sense in the world to a manufacturer. They have to distribute it under strict conditions which limit its possible uses and forbid tampering. If they do not they will lose their license. This forces the license terms on Intel, Atheros, etc. They have no choice on the matter and writing billions of letters to them will be pointless. There will be no change of mind and the firmware will always be under a license that is OSS incompatible. The right addressee for the mail is FCC (and its analogues). It is their business to enforce frequency bands and they are taking the easy way out by passing this responsibility to the manufacturers. If we really want wireless OSS firmware (I doubt that) the enforcement method of the current FCC regime must change and FCC must allow the manufacturers to release such firmware.

      Until then, no point to bother and Theo should vent some steam elsewhere. Plenty of new crypto processors around without support in OpenBSD (or elsewhere).

      --
      Baker's Law: Misery no longer loves company. Nowadays it insists on it
      http://www.sigsegv.cx/
  4. Intel open enough for me by Jeffrey+Baker · · Score: 5, Informative

    It should be noted that Intel manufactures the only technologically-current graphics processor which can claim to have open source drivers, and then Intel series of gigabit ethernet NICs is by far the best choice for use with Linux. Intel's wireless chips, the subject of the article, are not completely open but are rather more open than some of the competition.

  5. Who cares? by t0qer · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I'm not sure how to respond to this one without getting downmodded into the pits of hell, but here goes...

    This article was very scant on what exactly intel isn't supporting. All it says is some blurb about requiring folks to download firmware before they can use their OS of choice on intel hardware.

    WHAT HARDWARE ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT?

    CPU? Chipset? NIC? Router? Switches? What.. What the hell are you complaining about? Bios updates for Motherboards?

    I hate to bitch, but when you get some pretty good in depth stories rejected for lame hoopla like this, you get mad.

    --toq

  6. Not Holding My Breath by Jekler · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Intel's behavior won't affect the market one way or another. As a whole, the market is barreling towards an open source model. If Intel opens up, that's great. If they don't, it won't matter because someone else will enter the market that's willing to do so. The market will follow the demand, with or without Intel.

  7. How is this to Intel's advantage? by jorghis · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I dont totally understand whats going on here. What does intel stand to gain from refusing to publish hardware documentation? The article seems to imply that they are doing something shady and sneaky so that they can make more money but I dont see how this is to their advantage in any way. How do they stand to gain by having people writing software without proper documentation? I would think this would hurt them if anything. Can someone please enlighten me? Although I am ill informed on this issue, calling someone you are trying to influence a "big fat liar" and publishing anothers personal email so that they can be spammed hardly seems like a good idea.

  8. not our enemy by juventasone · · Score: 3, Insightful

    If you compare Intel to other motherboard, chipset, or processor manufacturers, you'll find they arguably have better documentation and support for end-user and IT people than any of their competitors. They also are one of the only manufacturers I've seen to use open-source projects like FreeDOS and ISOLINUX. In their server lineup they support Linux as much as anyone.

    Since I'm not a developer I can't speak from a developer's perspective, but there seems to be a liking in this community to paint Intel with a brush of "evil tight-fisted corporation" when they're actually one of the few who act like they care.

  9. My Suggestion by Daengbo · · Score: 3, Informative

    While I actually think TFA is virtually useless, I understand that people want better wireless support for their various open source OS's. Intel's drivers for this are really quite open when compared to most others, but if you want drivers that are more open than Intel's, choose ones with the RT2400, RT2500, RT2570, and RT61 chipsets by RaLink. The drivers were open-sourced last year and have progressed quite well. Find more info at http://rt2x00.serialmonkey.com/wiki/index.php/Main _Page and http://sourceforge.net/projects/rt2400.

    --
    Put identity in the browser.
  10. Okay, I'll Try by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Funny

    Dear Intel,

    I am humble Nigerian prince with a great wealth of BSD users in a locked-out community...

    Aw, shucks.

  11. Re:Intel DOES provide some OS drivers by portmapper · · Score: 3, Informative
    What OpenBSD asks for is hardware documentation, not source code.

    They also ask for the right to distribute firmware under an acceptable license, but Intel refuses. Ironically your link
    above describe exactly the Intel attitude: http://ipw2100.sourceforge.net/firmware.php

    Upon selecting a link above you will be taken to the firmware license agreement. Agreeing to the terms
    presented on that page will direct your browser to the firmware download.
  12. Re:Why Firmware? by portmapper · · Score: 5, Informative

    OpenBSD want to distribute firmware along with the OS under an acceptable license. They are not asking for the source
    code of the firmware. Intel are instractible here, so owners of Intel wireless devices needs to personally accept a license
    before downloading the firmware. As an example: http://ipw2100.sourceforge.net/firmware.php

    As for open source drivers: OpenBSD wants hardware documentation, not a Linux driver, so that they can write their own drivers.
    Intel claims that they are open source friendly and gives out documentation, but the last is clearly a lie since OpenBSD had to reverse
    engineer several Intel wireless chipsets.

    Giving the appearance of beeing friendly to open source, while not beeing so, is the latest fad in business. Intel is an example
    of this fad.

  13. Better article on the story. by Karellen · · Score: 4, Informative

    http://kerneltrap.org/node/7184

    --
    Why doesn't the gene pool have a life guard?
  14. Re:Intel DOES provide some OS drivers by sirambrose · · Score: 3, Informative

    Intel does distribute the firmware for the newer ipw3945 driver under a sane license. Unfortunately, nobody distributes that since it requires a binary daemon to function. One has to wonder why Intel has not relicensed the other firmware files. They have acknowledged that the ipw2100/2200 license is too complicated and doesn't meet the needs of distributors, but they don't want to fix that problem. It would seem that Intel does not want their drivers supported out of the box on open source operating systems.

    If I were to write to Intel, I would ask that all wireless firmware be released under the ipw3945 license. Intel legal has already approved it and it provides a clear description of exactly what we want.

  15. Not going to happen by vladimir_putin · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I work for some company developing wireless firmware for our ( completely unrelated ) product. Opensourcing the firmware or HW specs below it is not going to happen, ever, by any company. The reason is that wireless devices must comply with wireless standards. The firmware plays an important part in creating this compatibility. Opening the HW specs would mean that the original company would have to support some random hacker "optimizing" the algorithms in firmware to work better with his scenario forgetting other features that he does not think really matter, but are necessary for the wireless devices working toghether. HW specs are not designed to be easy to understand. They are designed to kick ass in performance or save 0.001mm2 from the silicon area. Usually the savings in silicon area come with the penalty of the interface being "interesting" to say it nicely. Also the HW versions change quite often and HW bugs are worked around in firmware. The amount of work to document all the bugs for open source firmware writers would be humongous. There are not really that many people working with the firmware. Gaining complete understanding of how our own firmware works takes years for for any novice entering the team. Nobody from our team wants to get into scenario where we must try to understand tens of different versions of the firmware and what are the implications of running each of them. The published interfaces need to be - quite stable across HW revisions. - Must not be able to compromize wireless standards compatibility Open source can work with drivers, but never with firmware. This is life. Deal with it.