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Proprietary Parts in OLPC Project Draw Criticism
An anonymous reader writes "The Jem Report is running a story about the recent controversy surrounding the hardware used in OLPC laptops. Some devices require NDA's to write drivers, and some parts require firmware that cannot be freely redistributed. Richard Stallmann and Theo de Raadt oppose the use of such devices. Jim Getty defends OLPC's choice (de Raadts response). Jem Matzan has interviewed all sides and published the answers."
...doesnt make it law. The OLPC projects goal is to put a laptop into every childs hands, not to create a political statement about free software.
In case you were wondering, I was.
Theo's absolutely right. The masses depend on OSS developers to maintain the drivers when a device manufacturer drops the ball (which they always do at some point), and the developers need complete device documentation to do that right.
Moderator hint: a comment is neither "Flamebait" nor "Troll" if it is true.
Between propriatary or nothing at all, its understandable why the project picked propriatary.
Note to RMS fanboys: Life is full of COMPROMISES. Sometimes you have to take a little bit of the "bad" to accomplish something good. Having RMS out there spewing because of things like this does NOTHING to help people's opinion of him, OR HIS IDEOLOGY.
This is a common misunderstanding on Slashdot as well, and is seen every time OpenBSD uses public pressure (after months and years of private e-mail correspondance has failed) to get hardware vendors give hardware documentation (freely, not under NDA) and reasonable distribution rights of firmware. Actually, it is quite sad to see so post extolling the glory of GPL and in the next sentence demands the latest binary only driver.
The chip in question has unique features that no other chip on the market has. Mesh networks and extremely low power consumption.
In other words, good or bad, the part is NOT replaceable without harming the end product significantly.
If there's concern that Marvell (the chip maker) will randomly drop support for their product at one point of time, things should not be left to guesses but this should simply and plainly be covered in the contracts.
I also am susprised at the opinion that OLPC is targeted at OSS community. It has never been isn't and won't be. The goal is efficient, capable product using efficient solutions to solve a concrete proplem, of children having laptops with network connectivity for education, discussions, information exchange, communication and so on.
Don't forget: not everything proprietary is evil. If WindowsCE would provide much better and cheaper solution, OLPC would use it without thinking twice about it. Windows CE in fact *was* considered briefly at a point.
That much of the silicon we're building *hasn't even taped out yet* (we're testing FPGA versions before they become ASIC's right now). Yet open source drivers for the hardware are already publically available (e.g. NAND driver, camera driver, SD driver).
- Jim Gettys
With people like RMS and Theo, there don't seem to be any choices except to do it *their* way. They would definitely pull a "cut off your nose to spite your face" move just to make sure that people haven't forgotten about them or their ideology. They would rather see beneficial projects fail than see them successful without incorporating their values.
It's really kinda sad that they would use something which is not a FOSS issue to raise a fuss.
I can very well understand why some device manufacturers and software manufacturers require tight NDAs, but I cannot support that motion.
Why does MS have a de facto monopoly on the OS market? Because their software is the best? Don't make me laugh. Because it is the most stable? *smirk* Because it is the most convenient? *pets Apple*
No. Because everyone grew up with it, knows how to use it and, well, old dogs don't really enjoy learning new tricks.
Now, in Africa, we're back to base one. Anything or anyone could get a hold of people who have never had a computer before and have no preferences because they are "used" to a certain flavor or appearance of the OS. There, every OS, every piece of hardware is on equal ground, provided it's affordable.
NDAs and CS software would start to build the foundation of yet another monopoly there. With OS, it is way harder, CS gives you an edge over your competitors. And once the people get "used" to having this kind of chip or that kind of software on their PC, the lock in has started.
So even if it means only 90 out of 100 kids instead of all of them get a PC, OS is the right way to choose in the long run. Just trying to push a computer into every hand right now is quite shortsighted, simply because with CS you're just handing over yet another market to vendor lock in.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
In case you were wondering, RTFA stands for Read The Fscking Article. If you RTFA you won't wonder what OLPC stands for, and if you were wondering what OLPC stands for you didn't RTFA. This is modded as informitive!!??? Rule of thumb modders: if the post doesn't tell you anything you couldn't have gotten by reading the damn article, it is *NOT* informative!
Guns don't kill people; Physics kills people! - John Lithgow as Dick Solomon on Third Rock From The Sun
Which is more disappointing? The present situation, or not being used at all?
I think that if children are going to use those laptops, they won't notice if there are proprietary parts on their laptops... After all, children are going to use them to do homework for school, and probably for a little gaming. Maybe some teenagers will care about upgradeable firmware and stuff, but I think that the aim of those laptops isn't precisely the "geek" segment of those teens.
..and he can work for a day, teach him the sourcecode and he can work forever.
No, seriously, the OLPC (and other development projects) should be about empowerment. And for this goal open source is the way to go.
If you take a look at e.g. agriculture, you see a lot of (probably) well meant development projects that ended in dependence from some major company and did in the long run as much (or more) harm as they helped.
(And, by the way, OLPC is - intended or not - a political statement though not about free software. But there is a connection.)
"Hannibal's plans never work right. They just work." Amy/A-Team
Maybe then they'll get busy coding and stop whining. It's all well and good to point out that something's not open, but don't just whine about it. Do something: go find the manyfacturers willing to side with your cause. Then start another project that is more in line with your ideals. And make sure youre price comes in under the proprietary one, otherwise it's not gonna fly.
Won't somebody please think of the children?
"When you're making a cake, it's not OK to have even a little bit of dog shit mixed in the batter."
Ladies and gentleman. I'm proud to announce that extremism isn't dead.
If the idea is to make the devices as useful as possible to local populations in diverse places, then the component drivers need to be as available as the software. There's no way to anticipate every situation and every mod a particular community might want to make. And it's worth the effort even if that means it takes another two years to get the device to market.
That's our life, the big wheel of shit. - The Fat Man, Blue Tango Salvage
This is phenomenal! Has the Slashdot "gene pool" really become so tainted that the act of pointing out that regurgitating a portion of the first line of an article is *NOT* being informative, can be misconstrued as trolling? Fscking amazing!
Guns don't kill people; Physics kills people! - John Lithgow as Dick Solomon on Third Rock From The Sun
...that Theo critizes OLPC & Red hat & friends for accepting to sign NDAS to write open source drivers.
I mean, isn't ironic that the guy that is saying this is the leader of a open source OS with a license that allows people to write propietary drivers not only without giving the specs, but without giving the source?
Theo, why don't you dont start changing the OpenBSD license? BSD is a great license, but if you want to be coherent you may aswell stop calling "OSS unfriendly" to the people that tries to provide open source drivers for some hardware. GPL drivers without NDA are better than nothing. Save your criticism for the company that does NOT release specs neither the source, not for the ones that give a step ahead and allow to write OSS drivers.
"Those political views created open source, without which the OLPC project could not achieve its goals."
They couldn't? My how full of yourselfs, you all are. The straightest path for the project may have been OSS, but I seriously doubt that OSS is the ONLY WAY.
Those political views created open source, without which the OLPC project could not achieve its goals.
check this out
Intel's Classmate PC is beefier than the OLPC - faster processor (900MHz), 1GB of flash (double the current iteration of half a gig), twice the RAM, XP embedded SP2, and costs about $100 more due to the larger processor and memory.
AND you don't have to buy them a million at a time like the OLPC.
Initial prototypes have generated a great deal of interest, and Intel claims that orders have been received from Mexico, Nigeria, India, and Brazil. It is worth noting that India evaluated the OLPC 2B1 laptop and decided not to purchase any. Source.
On one hand, I think Theo and crew are right on. I've used OpenBSD for many years now and have seen the results of the no-compromise-and-take-no-prisoner approach in execution. The result is good.
Lack of compromise can be messy. But in the wide world o' technology compromise can often equal crap...particularly with regard to corporate interest, marketing, and profit motive.
On the other hand, the things discussed here are a)documentation and b)distribution rights.
These are both things very easily reversed down the road. If a brazillion of these laptops get out into the field, then the interested parties decide to pull a fast one, a) the documentation is out there for people to get their hands on (even if it's against the agreement) and b)it will be difficult to prevent distribution of the code when it's "For the children".
The tragedy in this scenario is that once again the artificial constructs of human legalities will be interfering with a great creation.
It would be good to have all this above board and cleared up, preferably along the lines of Theo's hard line stance. However, if it's not cleared up, it's not the end of the world. It'll just be another nasty grey area in the screwed up world of intellectual property.
While I agree with your post, this debate isn't about open source vs closed source. It's really about open documentation vs closed documentation.
This is interesting because Theo (and, apparently, RMS) are okay with closed firmware, while the project being criticized for being "proprietary" is busy writing open source firmware to replace it.
Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
"Between propriatary or nothing at all, its understandable why the project picked propriatary."
.. :)
..
It didn't pick propriatary, the project picked a Linux-based laptop. All the hardware manufacturers have to do is provide the source code. NDA's and firmware that cannot be freely redistributed are a clear breech of the GPL. It appears that Marvell were unable to provide the firmware due to the use of a third party's embedded OS. Richard Stallmann and Theo de Raadt are correct in this instance as to allow this to happpen unopposed would set a very dangerous precident. Rest of ad hominem, offtopic abuse filtered out by bayesian FudAssassin
was Given the choice (Score:5, Interesting)
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X-Fud-Report: triggered on fanboys, spewing , IDEOLOGY
davecb5620@gmail.com
though, I'm actually impressed your second post hasn't been modded down yet. They must be slacking.
A guilty conscience means at least you've got one.
As an avid OSS supporter especially BSD I do believe in what Theo is saying. I have followed his rants and raves over the years and in general HIS points are right on as always though his method of conveying them is not always the best.
However I don't see the big deal honestly. OLPC is simply leveraging its power to get work done, something it really can't do in the open source community. I am sure if there was some (Theo perhaps) who offered to write the mesh-networking algorithms for an open card then they would go for that one but I don't see anybody offering. If this is a required feature which really does seem so then they need to leverage their position and power to get this done.
Let's not forget that though the OLPC is a non-profit and OSS based and blah, blah blah it is at heart a business, funded by businesses and CEO's, and let's not forget that all businesses (yes even google) look for future revenue. That is what the OLPC project represents to the sponsoring companies, a huge user base that they can reach, open up new markets and hopefully sell some products down the line while breaking even or perhaps even making a little money by selling to these markets (sorry for the string of run-on's)
So in this case it is not bad to go with a chip if there are no alternatives. Now if Theo or someone else offered to write this and/or there was an open vendor that could do it and then they still chose Marvell perhaps because of some cost-savings then he has a valid rant, otherwise if there is not choice then the business must run, money must be made and the children must get their laptops.
I can imagine a remake of Pink Floyd's wall - "We don't need no OLPC, We don't need no Mesh Control" sorry bad joke....
Software Defined RFID - The Rifidi Emulator
I would have to disagree with one of Theo's statements: "OLPC should disclose why they picked the Marvell chip." Why? What impact does disclosing their design decisions openly have besides opening OLPC to criticism from the community? What does it matter if they feel that the Marvell chip is the only one to meet their needs? Considering that this project has the potential to improve education over the entire world, does that not mitigate any other consideration? It's not as if Marvell is going to pull their technology out of this project after the devices are fielded.
We're through being cool! Eliminate the ninnies and the twits! -Devo
What a bunch of lies. It was OLPC who claimed the opensource banner years ago, when they rejected OSX by saying it was not Open Source enough.
Now, they turn hypocritical when it suits them. Of course they have to reject OSX, after all, wasn't it RedHat that funded it? Bah.
So this thing has both an ARM and a souped-up 486 (aka Cyrix 5x86 aka National Semiconductor Geode aka AMD Geode)?
Why not just ditch x86 and go ARM exclusively? Is x86 binary compatibility that important?
You could even label it a "BBC Micro" or an "Acorn" for old time's sake.
Gettys says quite clearly that:
"A GPL Linux device driver for the Marvell wireless chip, the Libertas driver, still under development but also fully functional can be found in our GIT tree.
We are having open firmware for the Marvell wireless chip developed by Meraki. I don't know yet what license that code will be released under, though would expect it would likely be one or more of the MIT, LGPL or GPL licenses; but we'll have to think through the usage cases and needs of the communities involved before we can make that choice."
So yes, open and free drivers and firmwares are being developed as we speak. So is this an issue not about what OLPC will use in the future, but about what they are temporarily using at this very moment?
Lesbian Nazi Hookers Abducted by UFOs and Forced Into Weight Loss Programs - -all next week on Town Talk.
1. Get over yourself. You're not better than everyone else. 2. Limit your intake to 2 cups of coffee. 3. Why should anyone have to RTFA just to find out what the acronym is? 4. You are a troll.
Theo's response was a very short incisive critique that exposes the guts of the hardware argument. On one side, manufacturers and their shills all want disposable hardware. Is it OK if every child has a laptop but the parts from their old one are leaching lead into their water supply and they are too dumb to use them? Driver maintenance helps keep hardware out of landfills. If the service life of a piece of hardware is extended, the cost of recycling its toxic parts becomes affordable. Software (long term driver maintenance) that squeezes the extra value out of the hardware is the key. The problem is that vendors want a horizontal market where they can cash in on volume, volume, volume!
This turns out to be one of those "long tail" issues. Disposable computers will poison the children.
A possible compromise would be an expiration clause to the NDA that allowed full documentation release in one or two years (or three if you want to push it).
--- Nothing clever here: move along now...
Ha ha. Well, for what it's worth, I agree with you.
Do you really think that the point behind getting a laptop in every child's hands is to get them to start programming source code? I personally don't think it is. Its to just get them a computer in the first place. Computers existed in the United States before Windows you know but their usage didn't explode until Microsoft created an operating system that was easy enough to use for just about anyone to pick up. The bulk of the population of the United States didn't become programmers. Not even half became programmers. Nor a quarter or a 20th. I predict the very same course of events for India. The OLPC is just something to USE not program on. Thus it being open source or not is irrelevant.
By the way, hasn't the Slashdot population learned yet that the overwhelming majority of humans in any nation are never ever ever going to be programmers?
Mac OS X and Windows XP working side by side to fight back the night.
..and have used the "sin of ommission" debate 101 gambit to try and make a point which is in truth erroneous. ONE of the goals is to put a laptop into the hands of kids everywhere, ANOTHER goal is to insure they can tinker with said laptop at all levels, using all open source software. They even say it clearly "children must be allowed to play", which means at any level, as their knowledge expands, they should be able to continue to use the laptop as they see fit.. Open source is a primary goal, and it is political, and it is practical, and is a driving force in these descisions. That's why the use of the words open, free, libre, etc.
t ware
http://wiki.laptop.org/go/OLPC_on_open_source_sof
With that said, reading the debate in TFA, it looks like they *are* really trying hard to achieve that goal 100%, but are stuck at the high 90s or something. It looks like if some other hardware company wants to jump in and potentially sell x-millions of wireless chips, they would have a real decent slam dunk chance if it did what the marvell chip did with the instant meshing at low power and not using the CPU much and had all open firmware. Opportunity is knocking quite loudly there for some hardware devs...
Hi MZS! Nice Troll!
Stop replying to yourself troll!
I understand where you are going with your argument. Its akin to third world nations starting with cell towers for telephony instead of laying copper.
IMO its a bit different with computers. OSS just isn't up to par yet with Windows and Mac OS X from a regular user standpoint. There's also a bit of pride and prestiege. Just because these people are the poorest people on Earth does not mean they want to use what to them are "second class operating systems" that can't run the software that their friends and families in developed countries can run. I've actually read stories of third world charities asking people to STOP sending them 3 and 4 year old computers because they were tired of using that old junk. They want the newest and most popular products just as badly as Americans and Europeans do(perhaps even moreso) because they are deprived, and I'm sorry but Linux and BSD just don't top Windows/OS X in regular software and ease of use. Plus I figure OSS is a hobby of convienence. If I'm worried about my next meal or water safety or paramilitary rebels I'm not going to have the time or patients to get NDISwrapper to work right or try to figure out why Ubuntu doesn't have media players enabled by default. I'm going to want my device to "Just Work."
On a side note, did you know that during Romania's communist regime the president of the country played tapes of the US soap drama "Dallas" in a bid to get his people to realize how broken families can become in a corrupt capitalist system? The attempt backfired as the impoverished Romanians were entranced by the lavish lifestyles, big houses and cars and gadgets that were on display on the show. It hastened his regime's downfall. The reason was the show Dallas provided a stark contrast between their lives and that of Americans. Well Africa has had TV for some time now. They know how a computer is supposed to look like, what its supposed to be capable of and how easy its supposed to be to use. I don't think any of them are looking forward to a Linux/Unix command line prompt.
Mac OS X and Windows XP working side by side to fight back the night.
RMS: "Let them eat cake!"
This is my assessment of RMS's possition. I've tried with bitter tennacity to maintain a considerable degree of respect for RMS obver the last few years, but here he's lost me.
If his possition realy is that it would better if these children had no laptop at all, than one that uses even a tiny seed of proprietary software, even temporarily, then he's he realy has lost the plot completely. Back when he started GNU he used proprietary platforms because nothing else existed. Now he's saying nobody should ever use proprietary systems even if they have no other alternative. This smacks of hypocrisy.
is to keep the hardware manufacturer in charge.
What if there is a new vector of attack on these machines but the kernel that fixes it is not compatible with the closed driver? Do without the hardware or the fix?
What if there is a way to process the signal if you get the raw information out to increase range or data rate (this, I believe is the reason why 11g turbo chips are closed off: the processing to increase rates is part of the driver, not the hardware, so you could get the same functionality off older or cheaper cards and do the processing yourself)? If the driver is closed, you cannot get at the raw info. You rely on the manfacturer to keep up to date and rely on them giving you everything you want that the hardware can do.
I don't see a problem with *firmware* blobs - provided they have an eternal and unlimited license for use. Blobs are a security problem when they run in the kernel (e.g. nvidia, wireless drivers). Firmware blobs are just a way to save the cost of a ROM. (High speed chips typical copy ROM to RAM rather than run from ROM, because RAM is faster.) I still haven't figured out whether the OLPC blobs in question are binary drivers or firmware.
Only on slashdot would "programmers getting paid" be equated with a "tax".* So does that mean that you advocate programmers not getting paid for their hard work? If so, then OSS is perfect for you, because there's no "tax" to keep the programmers going no matter how much Theo and RMS whine about supporting their respective movements.
*It's not a "tax" because I and others can purchase computers that don't have Windows. So you lose on that account as well.
I understand that Marvell apparently cannot free their firmware, since it's not really theirs, but I don't see why they cannot provide the hardware specifications.
Anyway I'm sure there are hardware vendors who can deliver the needed hardware and do it without holding back information, for such a big order as OLPC will make. Missed chances and such...
These guys (Marvell) take from community... End of story. The device is flawed. Apart from that I feel sorry for the OLPC guy's for having to work with these incompetent fools, trying to get information on their HW - been there done that, and never again.
Actually, it makes a certain amount of business sense to try and bring some level of education and "civilization" to the Third World. You don't hear about these motivations as much, because people like to concentrate on those moral impulses that make them feel good about themselves, but there are sound economic reasons for investing in development there.
You can make a lot more money off of a country as a trading partner than just as a weapons market. In the former case there's actually wealth created there, which benfits the entire global market; in the latter case it's just a sink for high-value goods (arms) to get destroyed, in return for some raw materials in payment. It's the ultimate broken window.
Not to mention that by making a country safer and more educated, you create opportunities for capital investment, which is a major source of profit in the First World.
I'm not necessarily advocating cash-based foreign aid, but just pointing out that the economic benefits of wartorn countries are often overstated; it would be better and more profitable in the long run to create in them markets for manufactured goods besides weapons, irregardless of the moral or ethical reasons for doing so.
That said, it's a common misconception that the OLPC machines are designed for "starving kids in Africa." I think the intended users are countries that are truly "developing," like Thailand and Mexico, and not where there isn't even basic infrastructure nor enough money for food. Sending thousands of dollars worth of anything to a country controlled by warlords would of course be almost criminally stupid.
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
My experience has been that proprietary anything eventually leads to no good. The company that owns the proprietary technology can go out of business, leaving you with no support. Or that same company will drop support for your hardware, also leaving you stranded. Or that company can simply decide that since your project is getting such great benefit from their product that a price hike is justified. None of this would benefit people without enough monety to buy a computer. You can dance around it with legal mumbo jumbo all you want, but it just doesn't fit. Eventually there will be a conflict between the project goals and the proprietary drivers.
The goal of OLPC is to bring computers to poor countries and people. Poor computer users will want / need a completely open computing environment. What if one of these proprietary drivers turns out to be buggy? Wouldn't it make sense in this project for the user community to participate in debugging the driver? That can't happen with a proprietary driver.
We all know that corporations who provide proprietary technology to OSS projects can be very very very very slow with patches and upgrades (*cough* Adobe Flash player 9 for Linux *cough*). Why introduce this frustration into the OLPC project?
Honestly, they would be better off with a $400.00 Dell laptop running XP Pro than they would with proprietary drivers on Fedora Core. The proprietary drivers on XP would be patched / upgraded more quickly, and less likely to be buggy (because more attention is always paid to proprietary Windows drivers. Proprietary OSS plays second fiddle at best).
So RMS and Theo, my hat is off to you (once again) for standing up for what's right. You are both saints and heroes in my book.
I think you should be very careful describing the project that way.
Saying that it makes people in other countries "able to compete" probably isn't going to win you a lot of friends amount the recently-unemployed here in Western countries. In fact, I could imagine that to someone who's recently seen their job disappear due to globalization, if you say "without computers or some other advantage, these third world countries will find themselves unable to compete," a more likely reaction would be "good, let's keep it that way."
Rather than competition, I think that we need to look at the global market as a one of participation. Obviously, there is competition, but by increasing the educational level of other countries, you produce markets for goods and capital in addition to just creating more skilled labor. So as I've said elsewhere, it can make good business sense, from a purely self-interested foreign policy perspective, to help other nations bootstrap themselves.
'Let's help them compete with us' may play well with the cocktail-party set, but it's going to go over like a fart in church at your local UAW meeting, I think.
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
Even Jim, who is posting here and has provided his signature so everyone has the opportunity to notice, doesn't seem to mind but I do. For the anonymous Slashdot contributor, for Zonk the Slashdot 'make-believe' editor and to anyone else who does not actually know what Jim's family name (surname) is, I'll spell it for you: "Gettys".
And, for anyone who doesn't already know, without the work of Jim Gettys, and people like Bob Scheifler and Keith Packard, Linux & GNU would have had to come up with another plan for graphics and input devices than the X Window System.
Well, it's hard to imagine Aqua running on a Geode processor, but the underlying parts of OS X that were derived from NeXT ran just fine on 30MHz machines; I doubt you'd have that much of a problem building something for an embedded system if the desire was there. It basically becomes a question of how much modern userland stuff from OS X you want to throw in on top of the kernel; that's where the bloat is.
At any rate, I think the OLPC people made the right decision in going with Linux; it's certainly easier to customize than OS X would have been, if only because there are many more people familiar with the Linux kernel than the xnu one.
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
Open source drivers are not a step forward. They are worthless crap. Just because you can look at the source, doesn't mean you can do anything with it. When the open source driver is full of magic numbers with no explanation, then its just as useless as a closed driver. We NEED DOCS so that we can maintain real support for the hardware. Relying on the company to provide fixes and support their hardware is fucking retarded, they don't want it supported for a long time, they want it to become "obsolete" so that you have to buy more hardware from them.
You FAGS!!! should clean and donate your cum infested machines. I am sure that some kid out there will put the machine to better use than you FAGS!!! playing sideline and sitting around getting fat.
- Wolf Bearclaw (The FAG!!! slayer)
"Are you saying that hardware should enforce law, by not allowing certain kinds of software operation? "
I'm assuming that's a rhetorical question, because hardware already does enforce laws. From hardware design, to software/hardware combinations. Weither you realize it or not, citizens have to obey laws. Be it our laws, or the laws of Africa. Don't like it? You know how to change it. In the mean time OSS can continue to swim upstream, beliving it's its manifest destiny to be a rebel without a clue.
Oops. Also, his top level site is just a bunch of dirs, oh well.
"BSD already had reverse engineered the firmwares to the intel wireless chipsets without documentation, but they were buggy, so he wants Intel to let BSD have the documentation. He also wants Intel to let BSD redistribute the "real" firmware, while they work the bugs out of the reverse-engineered ones."
Not they didn't. They reversed engineered the drivers. Drivers are very different from firmware.
As I tried to explain the firmware is no different than the firmware that Theo uses everyday on the motherboard he uses on his PC, or the raid controller that the uses on his server. None of which he has access too.
I suggest you learn the difference between firmware and drivers.
once again Theo produces much more heat than light.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
this is the only wireless chip fit for the job. if you want another company with more open source policies to make the same thing, you're asking them to dump a whole lot of $$$ on r&d, and they either won't bother, or if they do, it'll take forever for it to come to production. Marvell can live without OLPC's support. Under the license agreement for the hardware, OLPC has to use the proprietary firmware. So what they heck do you expect to do, then?
The problems Theo de Raadt and Richard Stallman have, are problems you only have (or can see) if you are living in a highly over-civilized enviroment. You see, the most important thing in the whole OLPC project seems to me, that second and third world countries can effictively fight poverty. If you are living in e.g. the dominican republic (been there last spring) and you are born in a poor family, you have to work to help feed your family. Therefor you are unable to get the education you would need, to get a job later on. And if you are adult yourself, you are in the same position, your parents were before. This is the vicious circle, the OLPC project tries to break. And THOSE CHILDREN DO NOT HAVE ONE OR TWO YEARS!
The other thing I wich to say is that you probably won't find any quality wireless chip without properitary parts. This is due to marketing. If you take a look, which kind of devices are well documentated you'll find, that many of them are originaly developed for market segments where FOSS is at least strongly deployed, for example Ethernetcards from the Server segment. Hardware from segments, where properitary software is mostly used, is on an average worse or not at all documentated, e.g. High End Graphicboards build in gamer PC's or (sic!) wireless cards. You need to have a strong FOSS community in a segment to have Hardware well documentated, and you need good hardware support to build up a strong FOSS community. If NDA's could help, they are a problematic, but passable way to get into a situation, wher H/W Vendors could be forced to open up their specifications (as seen in the past).
This is our own vicious circle, but at least we have the education to decide ourselfs...Okay, most of us....
Greets
Neolith
How shall I know what I think before I read what I wrote?
It is a very big deal, especially right now. Marvell is being taught that open source developers are willing to accept NDAs. Next time someone in the open source community approaches Marvell about writing an open driver for one of their chips Marvell will expect an NDA to be signed. This means that the documentation for the hardware is not generally available. When the author of the driver abandones said driver, no one will be able to maintain it without also signing an NDA. This flies in the face of open source philosophy - and it is also very impractical.
To top it all off, other vendors, like Intel, see what Marvell has managed and they expect developers to sign NDAs to gain access to documentation for their hardware.
This whole thing is threatening a lot of good work that Theo et al have done to improve vendor documentation access. It is a very big deal.
OLPC is supposed to be an open source project. Such a large player making such terrible choices under the open source banner is very damaging to the image of the movement, and to how companies perceive the movement and the expectations they have from open source developers.
How can you fork a laptop ?
It's all well and good talking about our freedoms and rights woth regards to software in the first world, but open source politics , if OLPC goes ahead, will have a real impact on people in the third world.
It doesn't matter how free the driver code is, if it was developed under an NDA, 2 years down the line when OLPC2 rolls out, and no-one cares to support the NDA'd driver, these laptops become scrap, polluting the third world.