Slashdot Mirror
Proprietary Blobs and the Pursuit of a Free Kernel
jammag writes "Ever since the GNewSense team pointed out that the Linux kernel contains proprietary firmware blobs, the question of whether a given distro is truly free software has gotten messier, notes Linux pundit Bruce Byfield. The FSF changed the definition of a free distribution, and a search for how to respond to this new definition is now well underway. Who wins and what solutions are implemented could have a major effect on the future of free and open source software. Debian has its own solution (by allowing users to choose their download), as do Ubuntu and Fedora (they include the offending firmware by default but make it possible to remove it). Meanwhile, the debate over firmware rages on. What resolves this issue?"
Learn from the OpenBSD team
Good Old Ass Kickin' Contest. -Then let Chuck Norris Decide.
John Walsh once found me while looking for some other kid. He was not amused.
Once again, the FSF takes a noble goal to a loony extreme.
If the device manufacturers had put the firmware in ROM (flash/EEPROM/whatever) attached to the peripheral rather than downloaded by the driver, does that really change anything? You haven't given the user any more or less freedom; you've just redistributed what lives where and probably increased hardware costs (and made firmware upgrades less simple). However, then those releases could support the device and be fully "free" according to this new FSF decision.
Quite frankly, I'm a pragmatist who admires all the great freedom in Linux (and that's why I choose to use it) and supports hardware manufacturers who release their specs (hence the reason I now have an ATI graphics card). That said, at the end of the day, I want a distro that makes my hardware work without a ton of fucking around because somebody philosophically disagreed with a driver. I also respect those who would rather not use such things.
Therefore, my hope is that the Ubuntu/Fedora will not change their approach. This is one of those dealbreakers on a distro for me.
Oh god, here we go again with another sequel to "Defining Free Software: The Neverending Story"...
It's just like people who argue the United States is a democracy. Then some joker has to stand up and correct them and say it's actually a federated republic. And then someone has to mention that it's a capitalistic federated republic. And then the grizzly-haired guy in back stands up and he says it can't be capitalism because we've got things like the Security and Exchange Commission, and rules and regulations, and the FCC, and the FDA, and and and -- why my god there's an awful lot of socialism here. And then someone has to point out that what we're really talking about is whether something is mostly a free market, because nothing out there is truly one thing or another-- And then the liberal arts major stands up and everybody laughs at him before he can say anything.
I'm going out for a smoke... I already know how this ends. Mr. Rogers wins (in a blood stained sweater).
#fuckbeta #iamslashdot #dicemustdie
When you let the FSF define what Freedom is, you've already lost it.
"When you see a unixer brainwashed beyond saving, kick him out of the door." - Xah Lee
I'm inclined to agree, but, apparently, there are hardware manufacturers who sue anyone who distributes their binary blobs without permission, but are quite happy to give Ubuntu and Debian and Redhat permission.. Freedom is not having to ask permission.
How we know is more important than what we know.
Sometimes there are simply no good alternatives to binary blobs available. Case in point, the nvidia closed source graphics drivers. As it stands nvidia currently produce the best graphics drivers available for linux hands down. The intel open source drivers don't even come close and both open source and closed source ATI drivers are a joke.
The nvidia driver is the only linux graphics driver which supports:
a) The full opengl spec, in hardware. The intel drivers fall back to software for some opengl calls and don't support frame buffer objects at all.
b) A proper memory manager which enables, among other things, framebuffer objects and true redirected direct rendering, none of this AIGLX bullshit.
c) Any kind of opengl or compositing on multiple monitors
d) Reliable video and opengl vsync
e) Working video decode acceleration for modern high definition h264 video.
f) Proper colour/gamma adjustment for the X screen
g) Overscan adjustment for dvi to hdmi adapters
It also has by far the fastest opengl performance, is the most stable and just generally works the best out of all the linux graphics drivers. If you want decent graphics performance on linux, forget the open source drivers, go with nvidia. I'm sure anybody who has struggled getting dual monitors to work properly with any other driver will agree with me.
I know this might be a hit to my karma, but one area in which open source really isn't up to par is graphics drivers. I'd love good open source drivers for display hardware as much as anybody but for the moment nvidia's closed source drivers just wipe the floor with everything else. If you're going to complain to anybody, complain to ATI for not putting enough effort into their open source driver, although recently this has been improving with additions like DRI2 and GEM.
So before becoming evangelical and denouncing closed source modules as evil, try improving the open source modules so that they come close to the same stability and functionality.
Sam
This is how the loudness war is killing music.
For things like wireless drivers the vendors can hide behind the FCC's restrictions and not release open source firmware for their hardware. This is among the worst forms of lazy regulation as it treats all users as criminals, shifts complexity to the masses, and results in products of lesser quality.
Get rid of the bad government policies and our computers would start working better. And we'd have more freedom, both on and off the expansion bus.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
And as soon as anyone cares what the fascist software foundation says, we'll let you know. Seriously, why do those cranks get airtime? You want free? Try digging back to our time, comp.unix.sources. No religion, no restrictions, no 'freedom' with a stack of rules. We just chipped in code and sent it around to share. It's miserable how they have hijacked the word "free."
I understand the reasoning, if you wish to compete against commercially available software *cough* Microsoft *cough*. You need to provide a product that works as well as (if not better) than the competition. Should you use the proprietary software (I'm not talking about just firmware but also things like flash, etc). I just don't know. Would Ubuntu be as big as it is now if it didn't use proprietary? Would Microsoft see a loss of market share if there wasn't a (in the average user's perspective I am not talking slashdotters here) viable alternative?
I've been watching the non-free blobs issue for awhile (particularly over here at Sun, where in JDK we call them "plugs"), and it's a good discussion to have.
However, looking at the new "Free Distro Guidelines" above, I'm struck by a particular section which seems extreme:
A free system distribution must not assist users in obtaining any nonfree information for practical use, or encourage them to do so. There should be no repositories or ports for nonfree software. Programs in the system should not suggest installing nonfree plugins, documentation, and so on.
and later:
All the documentation in a free system distribution must be released under an appropriate free license. Additionally, it must take care not to recommend nonfree software. [...] What would be unacceptable is for the documentation to give people instructions for installing a nonfree program on the system, or mention conveniences they might gain by doing so.
That's just ludicrous. Frankly, it's just a (very) small step away from requiring that you don't (or can't) run any non-free app on your "free" OS. That single clause has just blown any notion of a "free" (in any sense of trying to protect the end-user's freedoms, which is the FSF's major ideological foundation) distribution. I don't know who the manic that wrote that section is, but it's going to cause immeasurable harm to the Free Software movement.
If we go by that clause, NONE of the distros are free. You'd have to cut out a huge chunk of the Ubuntu distro, remove the entire non-free Debian archive, and I'm not even sure how to get it out of Fedora.
Honestly, the addition of those clauses take it from an entirely reasonable "Please use Free Software, and this distro contains only Free Softare" to a "Free Software! Free Software! (la-la-la there-is-no-non-Free la-la-la)" freakazoidal world.
The rest of the proposal is OK, with minor quibbles, but that clause is a show-stopper. Get rid of it right away. Or lose any credibility that the FSF has.
-Erik
There are always four sides to every story: your side, their side, the truth, and what really happened.
Tell the FOSS purists/zealots to shut the hell up already. Guess what? You will have to deal with proprietary something-or-other all the time. Get used to it and quit bitching. Your OS is damn near completely free, so stop complaining if that last tiny tidbit isn't completely open. Oh, and quit listening to Stallman. He's a hairy hippie nutcase.
No doubt... Way back in the day, nvidia was the first graphic card company to support 3d for Linux. That have done a very good job supporting Linux over the years. But now that are the devil because they have secret code? I would rather have a solid card with a binary blob than a "free" card that stinks. Go ahead and piss off the users that have nvidia cards and don't want to buy another one right now. Go ahead and piss of companies that supported Linux for years. You don't need them up in your ivory tower...
Other than die-hard believers here on Slashdot, to the rest of the world, what percentage of the population cares of their software gets the Stallman stamp of approval, and what percentage just wants their software to work?
Now I understand that having OSS drivers helps the kernel devs troubleshoot those drivers, and keep them up to date with constantly changing ABIs/APIs. I prefer free software, but I won't be a zealot about it. I am quite comfortable with proprietary software if it is the best solution for my need.
http://blindscribblings.com - Tasty pop-culture in conceptual fashion.
Hey! <glares>
For large sets, this will be our guide even unto death, for the LORD will work for each type of data it is applied to...
Translation: If I don't personally need something right this minute to accomplish my short term goals, nobody needs it and anyone who wants it is crazy.
-- The act of censorship is always worse than whatever is being censored. Always.
I've always wondered why I, as a Freedom-loving-user, should prefer a device which has its non-free firmware embedded in a ROM or Flash chip rather than as a file on a CD or FTP server with my linux distribution.
Because, let's be clear: *where* the non-free firmware is being stored is usually the choice you have.
100% Free hardware would clearly be better, but there's precious little of that around...
So: why is it evil to have the firmware distributed on CD? Why should I care even one itsy-little-bit where it's stored?
Meaning the user more interested in the out-of-the-box experience than in ideological purity. The user who just might make the "Year of Linux" on the desktop a reality.
and what loony extreme would that be? moral/logical consistency?
a "free distribution" by definition needs to be "free" in the FOSS sense. they're simply modifying the definition to elaborate on an issue that had been overlooked up until now.
no one is forcing you to use a free distribution. and the FSF hasn't condemned the Fedora project for taking the pragmatic approach. but it would hypocritical for them to overlook the issue of proprietary firmware blobs in their definition of free distributions after the issue has been raised by members of the community.
i'm a pragmatist too. i run Windows XP because the programs i use for work are Windows-only. but i'm not going to bitch about FSF not including my Windows XP Professional distribution in their definition of a free system just because someone "philosophically disagreed" with an OS.
TFA doesn't define what they mean by "firmware blob in the kernel"....
If they mean a piece of firmware for download to a specific hardware device, then that is rarely in the *kernel*. Usually it is held in a separate file on disk, that is downloaded to the device at boot time. If it is in a separate file, the binary firmware blob is then not a part of the kernel, so the point is moot. The little bit of loading code that opens and reads the file and blasts it to the hardware is part of the kernel - and is most likely already part of the open source code.
If they mean a part of the kernel with no open source, then it is kernel code and please stop calling it firmware.
As long as what's free and what's not free is clearly labeled and the non-free part can be easily excluded, you should be able to call it "mostly free."
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
your tag may be broken...
By and large, language is a tool for concealing the truth. -- George Carlin
If the complicated parts of the drivers that they don't want us to know about were in ROM instead of binary blobs, and the drivers were very simple then it would solve the problem, because anyone could write drivers for whatever OS they want. As it is, you have to be using the operating systems that Nvidea allows you to use. I prefer not to have to wait around for device manufacturers to decide we should be able to use their hardware on a specific system.
Is it any more free than having a distro that's free but not having the freedom to run it on your hardware because it's completely useless?
I understand the moral conflict, but it's not like I could buy a complete set of open hardware, and even if I could, I'd just be compromising on a different front.
I propose two new software freedoms:
-2: The Freedom to run any hardware, for any purpose
-1: The Freedom to run proprietary software, to run any hardware.
I don't understand why people don't want others have the freedom to install proprietary software on Linux system. I use both Linux and Windows. I enjoy running the latest and greatest games with the fastest video and sound cards.
I want robust support from NVIDIA and Creative. If Stallman had his way, there would be a huge disincentive to have working drivers. I require that my computer works with the hardware I bought for it.
I'm sick and tired of misguided free software enthusiasts applying free software principals to hardware. Yes, I think that as an individual tinkerer I should have the freedom to study and hack hardware that he owns, but hardware is not software. Hardware is a tangible thing. The structure of our laws protect tangible things more fiercely than ephemeral things, like software and ideas.
One of the original purpose of Free Software was to liberate hardware from the limitations of its software by protecting the freedom of the user.
However, Stallman's philosophy that "A free system distribution must not assist users in obtaining any nonfree information for practical use, or encourage them to do so" is ridiculous. Why should this be so? How does this promote freedom?
This is my computer, and it is my choice.
Stallman can't see the forest from the trees.
From http://psr.tumblr.com/post/57576525/two-new-software-freedoms
I am typing this from a Gnewsense system. I really appreciate the position Stallman holds - that the sole reason he would ever use unfree software would be to write free software to replace it. Thus, until he wrote the GNU system, he used proprietary systems and components until he could write his own free one. I am not able to go that far, but for non-work related things, I usually avoid non-free software, and even at work, I am working with Red Hat and other free software a lot of the time.
I guess I wasn't following things closely as one thing I was surprised at when I started using Debian (and later Ubuntu) was that there was no free Java out there. Gcj/gij and Kaffe are out there, but neither is at a level that can run most modern Java programs. Sun said in 2006 they were releasing Java as GPLv2, but that is still going on as far as I know. No full-featured Java means problems for packages I use like Eclipse or Vuze or Freenet.
Video players also have a lot of problems. Mplayer and Debian had a long history (of no Mplayer), but over the past two years it has been brought into Debian (but not Gnewsense). Flash videos from places like Youtube is a problem as well, I use Gnash, which can see some videos on Youtube and can't with others. It's also a whole rigmarole for me to watch Youtube videos on Gnewsense, I actually paste URLs into a shell script instead of watching them through my browser.
I figure if I'm going to put binary blobs, Java, and so forth on, I might as well being using Microsoft Vista. I agree with Stallman that a system is not 100% free if it allows an automatic method of installing non-free things. I personally think Debian, while not 100% free, is still close enough to suit myself in terms of allowing the option of installing non-free stuff. I don't use Debian any more but I can appreciate their position. With regards to Fedora and Ubuntu, I do not think the "you can remove non-free stuff if you want" argument holds water. That is a slippery slope as far as I'm concerned.
I appreciate Stallman's position very much. The problem with technical people is they tend to think very logically and practically and technically and don't really appreciate what Stallman's stance does. For every Stallman out there, there are thousands of guys in suits out there who want to see Vista, or at the very least some Suse hybrid on everyone's desk. I think we are very lucky to have Stallman around. I have to admit he has been helped by the Linus's and Debian's out there which are a little more practical, and a little less ideological (although to the average suit, they seem as ideological as Stallman). But stepping too far away to me is on a slippery slope to Vista land. It's an old story - if you can't beat it, then sue it for patent crap, start making Suse Linux/Microsoft hybrids and all of that.
is to reverse-engineer the proprietary software. Never mind the recent regulations against reverse-engineering; they can't last anyway... they are too restrictive to research.
If the device manufacturers had put the firmware in ROM (flash/EEPROM/whatever) attached to the peripheral rather than downloaded by the driver, does that really change anything? You haven't given the user any more or less freedom; you've just redistributed what lives where and probably increased hardware costs (and made firmware upgrades less simple).
Correct me if I'm wrong, but you would also have removed the need to reimplement the device's firmware if you only wanted to rewrite the driver, which has obvious advantages from a F/OSS point of view.
Quite frankly, I'm a pragmatist who admires all the great freedom in Linux (and that's why I choose to use it) and supports hardware manufacturers who release their specs (hence the reason I now have an ATI graphics card). That said, at the end of the day, I want a distro that makes my hardware work without a ton of fucking around because somebody philosophically disagreed with a driver.
Exactly. And the thought of being locked into a specific architecture because somebody philosophically disagreed with the idea of letting their users port drivers to their architecture of choice, well, ain't a pleasant one. Hey, lock yourself up all you want, I know that sometimes a short-term gain is worth a long-term sacrifice and I do that as well sometimes, but let's not pretend that people who think differently are instantly 'loony'.
No problem is insoluble in all conceivable circumstances.
The solution to the proprietary driver problem is obvious: Vendors should put whatever code they deem to be protected and private in ROM on the device, and then publish a spec to talk to that driver that can be completely open. This splits the driver in half: The public part that can be published in C and comprises all the necessary interfaces, and the private portion that can hide hardware functionality and reside on the device.
This would have been a problem back when there were CPUs other than Intel, but that's just not the case anymore. Any CPU can emulate an X86 to drive devices if necessary. At this point, X86 is a universal virtual machine.
Yes because software internal to the kernel should be more trusted and open. These proprietary blobs are not sand-boxed, remember. Talking about what's best will make people aware of their options and will encourage a company to open their code, especially for peripherals where the profit is more in hardware than secrets.
Well the GPL has always had a network clause and your scenario is like that.
You're a must-work-now kind of pragmatist, not a long-term pragmatist.
I very much doubt that. If you've got a bug can you feasibly fix it in a proprietary blob? Will you go years without being to run that proprietary blob on a 64-bit platform? Can a government ensure their sovereignty and verify that the software behaves correctly? Can you improve the peripheral and integrate it better with your system? Even if you don't know how to program do you think that no one else in the world wants that? Proprietary blobs aren't the end of the world but they're not a good idea and it's ok to say so. It's great the FSF raise awareness about what scenarios you can and cannot achieve with these secret blobs. These people who call the FSF un-pragmatic really don't "admire all the great freedom in Linux".
No, not really. They're already not providing hardware specs, and that's about the worst they can do. Free software isn't about the "users", it's about the developers. Most free software is written by developers, because they need software to do something. If you don't like it, well... sucks to be you.
Ironically, the biggest whiners against "completely free" software are usually the people who contribute the least. They don't want to contribute or do any hard work, but they're more than happy to throw in their two cents on what they think should be done. Unfortunately for you, the people actually doing the "dirty work" disagree with you.
until you have the code for every PGA, the microcode for every processor, the schematics of every logic element. These all embody code of some sort. Where do you draw the line?
"To those who are overly cautious, everything is impossible. "
I agree w/ parent.
For me the issue is not, do I get the source code or not? Binary blobs are fine. If someone does not want to give the source that is OK w/ me.
But, if I do not have the right to hack it (whatever form it is) or do not have the right to redistribute my hack, then then it is not free and should not be included in a "free" distribution.
There is no such thing as all encompassing freedom. We procure certain hardware and some of it may even be off the shelf. I deal with the tools given to me to perform the job. I certainly aim to procure hardware which is more open, but certain attitudes will kill the open source movement. I recently tried to install Fedora 10, and the graphics are completely broken with the nv driver. I was able to complete the installation by guessing at the number of tabs that I had to press in order to complete the installation. It was better than dealing with an entity that complied with misleading the users about capabilities such as Intel. Buying off the shelf hardware shouldn't disqualify me from using the operating system of my choice. Microsoft does very little well, but Linux outright hates the user. I hate to say it, but Linux is rapidly becoming a niche os because of attitude. I tried to get my employer to use Linux for test equipment because we need kismet, and too few people are willing to deal with the pain of learning a new OS and dealing with the attitudes of developers. For GNU/Linux to succeed, egos have to start being checked at the door. There is a way to profit from open source hardware, but freedom should be ensured during the design phase and not after the product is already commercialized. If you come up with a plan that will cut costs and increase margins, most companies will accept and embrace it. The cries of freedom cause nothing but alienation. Start putting forward designs that are free or quit complaining. I can't tell you how many "free" developers have told me RTFM, only to find bugs in their code.
> I would rather have a solid card with a binary blob than a "free" card that stinks.
I'd personally choose that too, but in my experience the nvidia binary driver is everything but solid. On my two Linux systems with nvidia video cards, the nvidia driver is the number one thing that causes me trouble. Sure it works ok with typical "default" settings, but throw in a xinerama setup + S3 suspend support and you'll be faced with undocumented limitations, poor performance and wake up problems cause by the driver module. I have sent bug reports to nvidia about the issues I have had and never heard anything back.
"That said, at the end of the day, I want a distro that makes my hardware work without a ton of fucking around because somebody philosophically disagreed with a driver."
Thus why HURD hasn't gotten anywhere.
I've never had problems with Xinerama and nVidia but yeah I suppose S3 could be problematic.
Personally I think I'll stick to Intel for the moment.
I'm not a gamer and as long as it handles KDE 4's compositing, then I'm happy.
Their drivers are stunning and they are completely open.
2.6.28 and 2.6.29 have some really neat stuff for Intel cards.
As a recent convert from windows, I would rather have all my blobs built in, then have a true free kernel and have to hunt down for my blobs. Perhaps many linux fanboys will cry that their favorite distro isn't 'truly' free, but linux converts aren't made when users have to hunt to make their distro work to its fullest.
The answer is simple. The way to address the problem is to do to proprietary hardware what free software did to proprietary software. Design non-proprietary hardware and make it accessible to the masses.
-1 Uncomfortable Truth
I've always purchased NVIDIA cards when given the chance, as the hardware and drivers (Linux) seem to be rock solid. My laptop came with an ATI and (these days) it works very well too.
I think NVIDIA has done a good job supporting Linux, but they should still be pushed to release hardware specs and open source their drivers. Just because someone has supported the open source movement over the years doesn't give them license to sit back and say "I've done my part."
I wasn't aware that ATI had released any information more helpful than that which NVIDIA had. ATI's drivers are still closed source. Competition through capitalism is the thing that will drive a company to get better, and from my view better includes "more open source." If ATI has topped NVIDIA in this respect, maybe folks should start supporting them over NVIDIA...
There's nothing wrong with being fickle. I don't think anyone at NVIDIA will cry over it, though they may put on puppy-dog eyes.
This question is on a par with other weighty issues that mankind has wrestled with in the past.
"So you gave Redhat permission to distribute this data?" "Yes." "And were you aware it was being distributed under the GPL?" "Uhh..." "And that the GPL allows further modification and redistribution so long as it remains under that license?" "..." "Case dismissed!"
Is it any more free than having a distro that's free but not having the freedom to run it on your hardware because it's completely useless?
Having a distro like that serves at least one practical purpose: I can use it to evaluate a given set of hardware for compatibility. That can inform future purchasing decisions.
For instance, having used Linux, I now know that I will never knowingly buy a Broadcom wireless card -- or, very likely, anything from Broadcom -- even for devices I don't plan to run Linux on.
This is just taking that one step further.
it's not like I could buy a complete set of open hardware
Actually, under certain, limited circumstances, you can. I believe the OpenMoko Freerunner was such a device.
Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
RMS and FSF are really pushing it too far. Their agenda subconsciously is to prevent people from making money from their work.
1. Free Software and Source Code. (There goes the traditional business Model, of software profit)
2. SaaS is now considered Evil. (Fine you have have the software and the source however if you want to run it you will need our huge infrastructure to get the amazing things our product does, but you can use ours for a nominal fee, now that is out)
3, Firmware/Flash (Ok you have the software for free you can easily afford the hardware, but we open ourselfs and loss of millions of dollars of R&D the next week because our firmware needs to be open source)
It seems they just want you to make money by supporting the product. But a well done application should be easy enough to use that you don't need expensive support. You can talk about greed and capitalism but pushing to reduce methods of making money with software will have a chilling effect on the world.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
"So you gave Redhat permission to distribute this data?" "Yes." "And were you aware it was being distributed under the GPL?" "Uhh..." "And that the GPL allows further modification and redistribution so long as it remains under that license?" "..." "Case dismissed!"
If granting distribution rights to someone also meant giving them the right to relicense what they were distributing, the GPL would be defunct.
-1 Uncomfortable Truth
The thing is that, at the end of the day, the purpose of the Linux project is presumably the creation of a operating system (including of the GNU userland) that aspires to be completely and totally Free Software. Too, it is also meant to be used by programmers with the wherewithal to modify it to suit their needs. You could say the same thing about the BSDs (and OpenBSD even moreso).
Now, the neat thing about Linux is that it can be used by anybody for largely any purpose. Sadly, it seems the majority of Linux proponents have decided to push the purpose of Linux-as-the-leading-desktop-OS. As a byproduct of this, you hear a lot about the hardware support of consumer PCs, and how in some spots it can be very good to iffy to broken with FLOSS support, but okay with proprietary, closed, binary blob drivers. Such is the state of Linux hardware support today.
And as a result, you have an increasing group of people who use Linux on hardware that is only supported to a usable degree through the use of vendor-supplied binary blobs, thus compromising the ideal of a FLOSS OS.
These people then rationalize this cognititve dissonance by pulling out the "pragmatist" card, and also by painting those people (e.g. RMS) who would still preach about the concept of a Free OS being something to aspire to as zealots, or lunatics not living in the real world, and then maybe throw in a few puerile slurs (stinkin' hippie doesn't shower, hurrrr) for garnish.
It is my opinion that these individuals are not so much "pragmatic" as they are "too cheap to buy Windows(R)". Seriously now, if getting trifles like ACPI hibernation and a couple more frames per second is so important to you that you'd install crap that is a cross-purposes to the ideals of the underlying OS, why the hell wouldn't you use Windows. What's the difference between one component being a blob or ten? or a hundred? Oh, what's that? You'd prefer your directory separators lean in the other direction? Then buy a Mac. Hell, that's even a certified Unix!
No, a person who is truly deserving of the description of a "pragmatic Linux user", is not one who would install a binary-only driver or application, but one who would do a little research into the hardware situation, and then only buy hardware that is supported by FOSS. This is the pragmatic approach.
Let me tell you about my experience in this regard. I first tried FreeBSD on an old Duron with a GeForce FX 5200 graphics card (pokey no matter what kind of driver you have). I used the "nv" driver for a spell--then I wanted to play some OpenGL games. This necessitated the use of the "nvidia" proprietary driver. As a result, I got fair 3D performance, but oftentimes the system would lock up totally[1] (fortunately, the power button could be pressed to interrupt the system and do a clean shutdown). This computer eventually died--as old computers are wont to do--and so I went out and got a new one. However, I had been reading up on the state of Free Software graphics acceleration, and so I made certain that the GPU chipset in whichever computer I bought was Intel. Is Intel hardwarily poor compared to Nvidia? Sure. But the i810 driver gets a whole lot better performance than nv, and past experience meant the proprietary nvidia didn't even enter the equation. And I am keeping abreast of the FLOSS DRI situation, and I can assure you that, when I desire a more capable video card, it will most certainly be AMD, who supports FLOSS, and not Nvidia, who doesn't.
To sum up, if you use Linux, don't use blobs (because then what in God's name is the point of using Linux in the first place). And if as a result your hardware doesn't work optimally, don't complain (unless it's a bug report or a patch that contributes to it working optimally--see the first paragraph), because you knew what you were getting into. If this isn't your idea of a fun computing experience, you have two other options at the expense of spending a little cash.
[1]
The solution for a development group is to roll their own based on the available resources and then keep it maintained. The solution for a political group is to just yell at people in an attempt to herd cats. People have to remember that this is not the group behind linux and while they have an admirable agenda at some points it diverges from the best interests of completely different groups that memebers may occasionally pretend to represent.
I would rather have a solid card with a binary blob than a "free" card that stinks.
Nvidia is, unfortunately, an example of a solid card with a binary blob that stinks.
Go ahead and piss of companies that supported Linux for years.
By doing what?
I'm sorry, I never called nVidia "evil", or anything of the sort. Certainly, I'm grateful that I'm able to buy pretty much any nVidia card and have a better chance of finding working drivers for Linux than for Windows.
(True story: This laptop shipped with Ubuntu. Yet the only drivers available from the Dell website were for Vista, and nvidia claimed that Dell are the only ones allowed to distribute an XP driver. So I actually had to get a tech to give me a download link. On Ubuntu, it Just Worked, even when I reinstalled 64-bit...)
However, I'm not doing them any favors by pretending they have good drivers. They don't. Intel frequently beats them for 2D performance, and for things like Compiz and KDE4 -- which is sad, when you consider how weak the current Intel cards are. And I've had more than a few nvidia-driver crashes on an otherwise-functioning system.
Were the driver open, these problems might still exist, but at least I'd have a chance of solving them. As it is, the only thing I can do is idly threaten to go ATI next time.
All of which is customer feedback, which is something many companies devote a lot of time and effort into collecting. If that "pisses them off", then they deserve to die.
Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
Comment removed based on user account deletion
No, there is a profound ideological disagreement that needs to be vetted. There's an RMS viewpoint, the purist of 'free', the various GPLs, and the concept of what open source should mean and how it gets used. There's another, looser definition, and the motives of many, many coders and users.
It's not wise to trivialize the differences, as they represent motivations and a bucketload of resulting efforts.
---- Teach Peace. It's Cheaper Than War.
My experience with my former radio show and talking to people in person is exactly the opposite. People are interested to hear about software freedom and they become even more interested when proprietary software fails to behave as users would like (which it invariably does both because all complex software is buggy and because DRM cannot be implemented with free software). The kids that frequent sites like /. are all about rejecting anything that illustrates how computers are social and how society can't exist on the narrow commerce-centric definitions you find amongst proprietors and most businesses. But if you speak calmly and rationally to them in person they'll listen and ask questions. Pretty soon you have a conversation going and an opportunity to teach something kids don't learn in schools, unfortunately: social solidarity matters and that's what the free software movement is really all about.
Digital Citizen
If the device manufacturers had put the firmware in ROM (flash/EEPROM/whatever) attached to the peripheral rather than downloaded by the driver, does that really change anything?
If the license forbids you from distributing the binary blob in the driver, it changes quite a lot.
my hope is that the Ubuntu/Fedora will not change their approach.
I don't care much. I never used Ubuntu with any illusions that it would be 100% "free software" -- despite my best efforts to the contrary, I occasionally have to communicate with people via Skype. Despite the HTML5 effort, YouTube still requires Flash. And no matter what my ideology, if I'm a gamer, I'm going to be using proprietary software.
But it is nice to keep the definition clear. I have no problem with proprietary software, but let's not pretend it's something else.
Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
Absolutely no non-free code should be present in a self-respecting free OS, but the user should have the option to easily use non-free software, for example by downloading it from a non-free repository if the licence allows such distribution. This is why I use Debian, because it is DFSG free and yet it gives me the ability to unfree myself if I think I am being forced by reality to do it.
I don't like distros that feed me non-free code by default, even if they allow me to remove it. It is as if they feed me poison by default. The poison may be necessary if it gives me the ability to do a necessary task that cannot be done by free software, but whether I consider the task necessary enough to put myself in chains is something that must be *my* choice, not the choice of anyone else.
I also have a big problem with BIOSes, because they are non-free, which leads to them being full of bugs. The manufacturer only fixes bugs that prevent the most basic operation of the most mainstream OSes, and lets users of other OSes or those who find creative uses of their hardware behind with no option other than to think of hacks to get around the BIOS bugs. A free and open BIOS would solve my problems, but it's not ready yet (which means that we, the people who desire to be free, should work more to get it ready, along with free drivers for anything of course, but there isn't much to do when hardware manufacturers keep their documentation secret).
I really have a big problem with any non-free and non-open software code, whether it is in the OS or in the device itself, because non-open code tends to be buggy, and this happens for two reasons: the first is technical (less developers = less eyeballs to catch bugs = more bugs) and the other is business-related (most users run a mainstream OS and use their hardware for a specific basic purpose = the company can catch the most market share by just catering for these users and cut costs by not supporting users who run non-mainstream OSes and use their hardware in creative ways = non-mainstream OS users and those who use hardware creatively are left behind).
Another problem I have with non-free and non-open software is the fact that it is not under my control. If I don't have the opportunity to see what commands my computer executes, then I feel as if my computer is owned by someone else who may act against me by effectivelly hijacking my computer with code I cannot see. I want all technology I use to be potentially under my control, which can only happen if I have the freedom to understand and modify the technology (and sharing that understanding and modification greatly assists in achieving that objective). Only when I have complete control over my technology I am a free person.
I want all technology I use to be under my control. Ideally this could be achieved if I were the developer of all of my technology (ie homebrew computers, self-designed PCBs and CPUs, my own OS, etc), but this is not easy (albeit very rewarding, of course) so I often find I have to acquire technology developed by someone else. Free software is about making sure that this someone else respects my desire to control the technology I use, ie to enjoy technological self-determination, technological independence, and technological freedom.
Putting non-free code by default in a mostly free OS is like delivering slavery by default. Thank you very much, but I would prefer slavery as an option, not by default.
"Hardware Control"
It works for Apple, and may work for the people adamant about a completely FOSS setup (probably already does), but I'm positive that this isn't the direction Linux should be going.
Honestly, we do need these guys clamoring for absolutely open drivers and putting some pressure on manufacturers if we do intend to move in that direction ('cause we're not going to get there any other way). So to all of them: rock on.
Its easier to ask for permission than forgiveness...?
I have determined that my sig is indeterminate.
I don't know about fedora, but ubuntu installer has a free software only option at the opening screen. Functionality of high-level stuff may not be there (java, 3d-video, flash) but it's not inseperable.
Am I the only one who wondered (at first) what Messier could have to do with this? Are the FSF going to go all "Messier" on their asses and catalog all their anomolies?
What do you mean they cut the power? How can they cut the power, man? They're animals!
'What resolves this issue?"
OpenBSD, of course.
With reasonable men I will reason; with humane men I will plead; but to tyrants I will give no quarter. -- William Lloyd
I'm a little lost since I'm not sure how you mean this quote. Exactly who said that quote and where? I didn't find that quote in the grandparent post to which you followed up nor do I recall the FSF ever arguing this. To the contrary, they talk about proprietary software all the time: the problems it poses for society, the conflict between what schools ought to be doing and the message proprietary software sends instead, how to go about working for practical replacements to proprietary software so it isn't a problem (as they've done so many times by encouraging free software replacements or developing and distributing free software replacements directly).
If you're trying to get at some absolutist argument about freedom (so the quote isn't to be taken as someone's direct words but instead a concept) it won't work because some freedoms conflict and you need restrictions on some freedoms to preserve other more important freedoms. Again, I don't recall anyone ever advocating that one can't talk about software freedom outside of very restrictive circumstances (the FSF generally doesn't do this in its works so as to avoid lending legitimacy to proprietary software, but this is highly dependent on context). Restricting some freedoms to preserve other freedoms is an argument FSF speakers have made in talks which I'll try to summarize: we value pedestrians more highly than vehicle drivers so we restrict drivers from driving anywhere they want at any speed. We make them use streets, obey speed limits, and stop at intersections so pedestrians can cross. In the free software community the FSF wrote the GPL to restrict licensing of derivatives in order to preserve the freedoms to run, inspect, share, and modify for all computer users.
Tivoization is a real and present threat to software freedom. So the FSF improved the GPL and included language which nullifies that threat. The same for the threat posed by the Microsoft-Novell patent deal. Even the way in which Bittorrent distributes software was not well-addressed in GPLv2 so it was better handled in GPLv3. It's right and proper that when you're working to preserve software freedom you react to problems large and small as they arise. I'm guessing GPLv4 will be more of the same: reacting to dangers to software freedom, improving language to allow what may be confused for unintentional copyright infringement (ala Bittorrent where it's possible to inadvertantly distribute binaries without complete corresponding source code or a written promise for said source code), and generally making it easier to correct mistakes and get on with sharing and improving.
Digital Citizen
No, not really. They're already not providing hardware specs, and that's about the worst they can do. Free software isn't about the "users", it's about the developers. Most free software is written by developers, because they need software to do something. If you don't like it, well... sucks to be you.
Ironically, the biggest whiners against "completely free" software are usually the people who contribute the least. They don't want to contribute or do any hard work, but they're more than happy to throw in their two cents on what they think should be done. Unfortunately for you, the people actually doing the "dirty work" disagree with you.
Actually, the worst is to not provide any specs or drivers. And toss in changing hardware specs as well.
As to the other bit, I am an active contributer to 4 FOSS projects. I actively promote FOSS in my business. I guess you think I should be writing graphics drivers too... Your attitude is the problem. Whatever I do, it is not good enough for your standard. Knowing that, why try to make you happy at all? Also consider that from a hardware vendor point of view...
I was more talking about devs that keep trying to block nvidia, or block blobs, or block whatever. For example, Fedora 10 and nvidia with 3D... That is the attitude I am against. And many of my systems have Intel graphics. They have some major problems as well. Dell GX260s with intel graphics and going from grub splash to GDM with a crash come to mind. There is no prefect choice. But I still want to make that choice myself.
That costs quite a bit more money than making software. You have to have somewhere to design and reasearch, and it might be difficult to find competent engineers not hampered by NDA's and non-compete clauses.
Once again, the FSF takes a noble goal to a loony extreme.
If the device manufacturers had put the firmware in ROM (flash/EEPROM/whatever) attached to the peripheral rather than downloaded by the driver, does that really change anything? You haven't given the user any more or less freedom; you've just redistributed what lives where and probably increased hardware costs (and made firmware upgrades less simple). However, then those releases could support the device and be fully "free" according to this new FSF decision.
Quite frankly, I'm a pragmatist who admires all the great freedom in Linux (and that's why I choose to use it) and supports hardware manufacturers who release their specs (hence the reason I now have an ATI graphics card). That said, at the end of the day, I want a distro that makes my hardware work without a ton of fucking around because somebody philosophically disagreed with a driver. I also respect those who would rather not use such things.
Therefore, my hope is that the Ubuntu/Fedora will not change their approach. This is one of those dealbreakers on a distro for me.
Linux is all about freedom of choice. This choice happens to be mostly free. To think that the mostly free part is what defines Linux is (as I believe) wrong. Wrong wrong and wrong.
Linux is about empowering the user. It is freedom from the likes of Microsoft. FSF sounds very much like Microsoft from the opposite universe.
There is a huge difference between cards with proprietary drivers, and cards with proprietary firmware. Drivers run in your OS, are OS dependent, and have significant security risk. Binary drivers are evil (like from Nvidia).
Proprietary firmware, on the other hand, does *not* run in the OS - it runs on the card. The binary firmware blob is OS independent - works for Windows, Mac, Linux, BSD, BeOS, whatever. It is CPU independent - the card generally doesn't care whether the host system is PowerPC, Intel, or ARM. While there is a small chance that firmware can be a security risk (since it gets DMA access to memory), it is far more remote than binary drivers.
There is no reason to object to a binary firmware blob - unless there is some stupid restriction on redistributing it (Hi, Broadcom). All it does is save money by replacing a ROM (RAM is cheaper than ROM) - and makes firmware upgrades trivial.
I can't believe FSF is objecting to this. Someone should do a parody of their new guidelines - with instructions on how to remove all PROMs from the motherboard, I/O cards, disk drives, etc. All those PROMs contain secret proprietary firmware. We can't be buying hardware with proprietary secrets now, can we?
Seriously, they should simply require binary firmware to be freely redistributable - giving you the same same freedom as if it was in ROM.
At least, a binary blob can be reverse-engineered and tweaked (think RPC1 modding of DVD writers), but there would be no way to do that with ROM, or at least, it would be MUCH more difficult. And who knows hat's hidden in there: what about a key logger on an Ethernet controller, even with a backdoor for your government and whoever knows the secret key (think Clipper chip)?
cpghost at Cordula's Web.
Can a government ensure their sovereignty and verify that the software behaves correctly?
IMHO, the government doesn't have much need for gaming cards or their drivers.
social solidarity matters and that's what the free software movement is really all about.
Sure, and the free software movement is a lot like the GLBT movement I'm involved with this way; Too many people getting hung up on labels and esoteric issues that they forget the reason they're there in the first place. Look at how the HRC quietly tried to maneuver transgender protections out of the Employment Nondiscrimination Act (ENDA) -- which got them kicked out of a great many PRIDE events this year and saw the resignation of several board members and a significant portion of its charity fundraising evaporate. They're a lame duck now. :( It seems every social movement has to learn the same lessons the same way--it has to nearly fall apart before it can really come together.
#fuckbeta #iamslashdot #dicemustdie
Logically.. the firmware blob is not part of the driver. It's an image that has to be loaded onto the hardware, because the hardware is simple and doesn't retain its firmware permanently.
That is: the firmware isn't executed as or part of the kernel. Any more than files you upload with a FTP client are part of the FTP client.
I'm all for having free and open hardware options.
But for the time being it doesn't seem very practical for kernels to fail to support closed hardware that uses proprietary firmware.
In a way: the fact that there IS a binary blob (rather than hardwired firmware), makes the hardware more hackable.
I'm all for someone reversee-engineering the hardware and developing open source firmware, provided the open source firmware is just as stable and robust as the vendor-provided code.
But in any case, it should be user choice, and the default should be the most robust and simplest solution.
Currently that is: load the hardware-manufacturer provided firmware onto their hardware during initialization.
Reverse-engineering such drivers requires skilled people. But how many Linux hackers are actually familiar with Windows drivers? Perhaps a good collection of HOWTOs would help?
cpghost at Cordula's Web.
is this argument about as productive and meaningful as the Mac versus Windows argument? both of them at the end of the day mean so very little to the end users that are slowly becoming the main focus of these distros. Who remembers having to back out and edit a configuration file to change their resolution? Shit, some of us are probably still doing that, but now we can do it from the goddamn window manager. Users are responsible for that. And at the end of the day, a user does *NOT* care how the youtube video plays, or who's firmware is driving his 802.11 card, he cares that he can connect to wireless networks and watch afro ninja.
The whole point of this "100% free" craze (or should I say crap?) is that they want to push onto enthusiasts like us the idea of not having any proprietary software on our machines, however, most of us are not *FUCKING INSANE* like Stallman and are willing to accept the idea of using a driver that wasn't written by someone in his basement, or wasn't graciously provided by a company like Intel that is supportive of open source. Stallman would like you to believe that a fully open source system with no proprietary software is just as easy to use as one with, and hes right, if you want to use the 1999 internet on a computer built in 1999. the last time I even *TRIED* to have a fully open machine, it was on a 1999 laptop and it did a whole hell of a lot of nothing useful in terms of recent web standards or fun things like youtube.
Fuck Stallman and his bullshit I would rather have a working system running Windows than a broken system running Linux, and I do. I ran Linux exclusively in High school when everything was easily transferred over, then I went to college and, oh shit, I needed to concentrate on getting shit done. So I run Windows now. I'll Probably go back to linux when I get the time, quite a few interesting changes have been made to a lot of packages I use, but I don't have the time to be hacking my computer to shreds to get something to work when I can install Windows and just have it work. This is the way the world thinks.
System must actively prevent you from installing non-free software to be considered free?
It's not DRM, it's FRM (free-rights management)!
Don't forget you have to start back at the Semiconductor level. You don't think the transistor designs in any current commercial chip are open source do you?
While the goal of the FSF might be virtuous, in practice you can't be completely "IP" free unless you live in a cave in a grass skirt.
Bavarian Purity Law of Rice Krispie Squares: Rice Krispies, Marshmallows, Butter, Vanilla.
There actually are a number of open source hardware projects around. Modern "FPGA" (field programmable gate array) devices are getting incredibly cheap, and can be used to design your own CPU.
(opencores.org is one such site)
It won't touch the latest state of the art, but hey..
Bavarian Purity Law of Rice Krispie Squares: Rice Krispies, Marshmallows, Butter, Vanilla.
..and why can't you do that with Debian?
That's what the general public thinks of free software geeks. This page, and ones like it, are why. Sure, it's good to know how stuff works - that's how you master the ins and outs of security and optimize efficiency. But this is an example of how to write documentation for software that should have been made simpler.
Without any documentation all an average admin can install Virtualbox or VMWare, run it and install an OS in a virtual machine.
Maybe that's the new model of commercial software: to dumb down the infinite flexibility of free software to the point where its usable. The bike is free, but the training wheels are going to cost ya a bundle.
Help stamp out iliturcy.
They're exceedingly fine. The careful dividing of interpretations of propriety is an endeavor that gives work to lawyers. Anything that gives work to lawyers is not a good thing.
Help stamp out iliturcy.
I wasn't aware that ATI had released any information more helpful than that which NVIDIA had. ATI's drivers are still closed source.
ATI now has three drivers for Radeons
Put identity in the browser.
RMS and FSF are really pushing it too far. Their agenda subconsciously is to prevent people from making money from their work.
RMS and FSF make their living from people who pay for their work. It does not serve their purpose to bind the mouths of kine that feed them.
Help stamp out iliturcy.
unless you live in a cave in a grass skirt.
That's a funny place to find a cave..... Da - dah!
Have a look at soylentnews.org for a different view
I just don't see the difference between having to use certain software because of the demands of the hardware (Broadcom, most videocards) and having to use certain hardware because of the demands of the software (whatever can be supported using only completely open drivers). Either way you're sacrificing a degree of freedom in your choices, it's silly to think that one is somehow morally superior or more relevant.
Very limited circumstances, but to continue with the rest of my sentence: How is being forced to use the OpenMoko Freerunner, a phone which I had no interest in using superior than using whatever phone I want, but having to deal with software I may not agree with morally? Until all platforms are 100% open and firmware support is universal you'll always be cutting corner at one end or the other. I guess they are the FSF not the Freedom Foundation though, so I guess I've answered my own question about their stance.
i knew that intraining ment something
Wouldn't you expect to find a cave or two in a grass skirt ?
It's miserable how they have hijacked the word "free."
Back then, the "free" was implied. We called it software and that you could use it as you would was assumed. It's only a generation of lawsuits that have pulled us back from the brink of progress.
Get off my lawn kid.
Help stamp out iliturcy.
I am quite comfortable with proprietary software if it is the best solution for my need.
Me too. And I'm pragmatic enough to realize that if my vendor gets me hooked on a proprietary solution he's going to drag me by that hook as far as he can. Because he's got a job, and kids, and his kids expect presents under their tree.
Help stamp out iliturcy.
The thing that distinguishes various pundits on IT from RMS is compromise. He won't. They will. He's survived four generations of them.
I love the guy. He's wacky, he's quirky, and he's right.
If you prefer to keep with the way we're going, this is an example of where that leads.
Help stamp out iliturcy.
I agree on the pragmatic approach, but:
1) we are building on top of what the FSF and Stallman achieved by "tak[ing] a noble goal to a loony extreme". FLOSS as we know it would not exist unless they had been as uncompromising as they were. By stopping now you gain in the short term, but you lose in the medium and long term.
2) The hardware vendors could do a lot of things, but plain fact is they put firmware into their devices from with the help of the driver to reduce cost and complexity. That is fine, it's a good thing. Still, this means that it would be equally trivial to load up custom firmware. Your crappy printer does not support PCL and wastes ink on purpose? Well, you can fix that, now. Of course, you might brick it as well. But that's just fair game.
Let's see you touch firmware, then :)
Instead of making progress, life is becoming harder for free-software (Thanks to Ubuntu). I myself use nivdia's priority driver I have a firmware for my network driver and touchpad and webcam!! By I hate these and I wish I had free drivers to use. The non-free driver really suck because: - Webcam has some glitches always, I have to do some hacks for every new version of kernel - It starts with some delay, why I do not know! - What if I do not like to the light be turned on when I use the webcam! Suppose I am doing something I need the capture something on the darkness! - the touch-pad also sucks! what if I want to use two or three finger sensing! if windows users can not use it, Should not I be able to use them? - the nvidia driver also sucks! after some distros ( suse, and ubuntu) the free driver almost started to dis-appear. eventually installing the non-free driver become a part of installation! - now nvidia rules! kms, we should wait for nvidia to support it! new x.org version, we should wait for nvidia! we want to do this we should wait for nvidia!!!
"I don't see why my hardware needs free drivers, why should the hardware manufacturers release specifications? I mean free driver available for my such-and-such hardware just sucks in comparison to the proprietary driver. Why would I want the manufacturer to release the specifications for such-and-such hardware?! So foss developers could release more free drivers that suck even MORE?! PFFT!!"
I'm just amazed at the myopia displayed here from the commentards at slashdot every time I browse over. As another commenter pointed out, the guidelines are simply for distros that want FSF approval. There is no effort to force you not to use proprietary drivers or firmware, only an effort to replace said drivers and firmware with equally-functional or better free drivers and firmware so that you don't have to use the proprietary pieces anymore. If free software developers had listened to "freetards" like you, we would have never had a free compiler, free shell, free browser engines, free windowing server, free office suite, or free window managers. Why should we make GNOME, we have motif? Why open up star office, it's already adequate? Why force a free version of X-server that we can alter and improve, we have an adequate burdened version? Why make a free unix kernel replacement, we already. . . ? And so on. This is the shape of Free and Open Source Software. We push and push and push until we have access to all portions of the system. The power must never be taken away from the user. To allow one organization power to pull support at anytime and cripple any part of a free system could be, at its best, very annoying for a few users and, at its worst, disastrous for the whole.
free-tard: (n) A person with intermediate to high technical knowledge of Free Software systems but distinctly unaware of the advantages for all parts of the system to be free.
"Creationists make it sound as though a 'theory' is something you dreamt up after being drunk all night." -Asimov
I doubt the OpenMoko is completely open as that would clash with a lot of regulations about the GSM stack. Certifying these is _hard_ and costs a lot of money.
10 The FSF (re)defines what constitutes free.
20 People/companies/user/developers try to corrupt and blur software freedom using whatever means they can think of.
30 Goto 10
You are free to hit break if you don't like this loop but do realize it's been integral in getting us where we are today.
The problem with blobs is, if you go of the beaten path things break. If it's open source, you don't have to wait for that company far away to fix it.
New things are always on the horizon
nVidia was the best for a while and in my opinion still is. Now Intel has great FOSS drivers. If you want performance, ATI's FOSS drivers are coming along. Once they're fully functional, I see no reason to buy nVidia cards ever again.
What I want to know is why more people don't support dual licenses. I use the MIT license for core components and GPL for the whole project. Yeah, someone else can take all the core components and start their own project, but they still aren't going to uproot my project unless they put in some work.
I think the free software fans are confusing freedom with progress. So long as the end product is open source and I can modify it to my needs, I don't care what license it uses, and most likely, neither does the entire user base. If people are forced to allow modified code back into the parent project, that may arguably spur progress (at least in code, if not program functionality), but it doesn't make things any more free. Freedom is being able to do what you want, not having to walk around the politics and the raging egos because the FSF doesn't like the way your friends license software out to you.
You may not be able to legislate morality, but I think it's wrong to assume by default that there simply is no morality to start with. In the end, the people that make something work properly are going to get my money and/or support.
From grandparent post:
From parent post:
I agree with parent, and I think the grandparent has made a bit of a straw man argument here. (It's probably accidental, given some of their other replies.) I would say the long term choice is likely to be between a decent binary blob and a free driver that might start out inferior, but soon surpasses the quality of the binary driver.
The ideal situation, of course, would be a driver that is done well by the manufacturer, then released as free software along with specs for the device.
And I also don't think that people are making Nvidia out to be the devil. It happens that there are two major consumer video card manufacturers. One supported Linux better for a while, but the other one has one-upped them. So yes, Nvidia went from first to last, from one perspective, but it wasn't that much of a fall. If you're going to support one of their methods, why not go with the one that's better for you, while encouraging both to move towards the ideal scenario?
as pure information. If you can download that microcode over the network and install it into your CPU, then it is software, either free or unfree depending on what conditions it meets. If there is no way for the CPU vendor to get your computer running new microcode other than by shipping you a new CPU, it's not software and so the question of whether it's free or unfree software doesn't apply. There are, in fact, serious reasons to want to use only free hardware designs as well as only free software. The One Laptop Per Child project made some effort to keep as much of its hardware design free as it could (this was less than 100% though, because of the stock AMD CPU and so forth).
Youtube does not require flash it works with libswfdec and I think gnash too.
New things are always on the horizon
Given the low marginal cost of a chip, this could be an attractive prospect. Especially when Apple's OpenCL pushes parallel programming further into the mainstream, and big iron processors become less important.
I'm not sure how good an open source chip could get (with a proportionate level of developer input to the kernels). However, opening things up may drive the development towards solving the technical problems of downstream users. Maybe the LLVM team would have some input?
Not that you mention it... /. page. /. discussions.
I never could find any personal info in the
Just a large pile if interesting posts.
No matter what the physical form may be, she is contributing to some interesting
Keep on posting, girlintraining!
Their drivers are stunning and they are completely open.
2.6.28 and 2.6.29 have some really neat stuff for Intel cards.
I've had a Thinkpad with i915 in it now for three years.
Not ONCE during that time I've gotten properly accelerated 3D without any issues.
Very simple test subject, Google Earth.
Back at Xorg 6.8 it was simply unaccelerated and didn't work at all (had to set some environment variable so it would work).
Upgrade: When zooming in, the screen would go all foggy (bug in Mesa https://bugs.freedesktop.org/show_bug.cgi?id=17397
Beside these, throughout the whole time there's been a bunch of window issues. For example, if you drag any window (any popup that gearth generates) over the main window, there's horrible flicker.
So my experience with Intel stuff has been pure crap so far.
I'm looking forward to those 2.6.28 and the GEM stuff, maybe they'd finally make my GFX work.
To all those patting themselves on their back, giving each other high-fives that their closed source NVidia Linux drivers work for them *today*, fine, enjoy. Don't come crying to us tomorrow when NVidia has decided to abandon them, and only support newer hardware, and newer kernels.
If the source was available, drivers never need become abandonware, your 'older' cards would still be supported, and people would start, maybe just start, to really see the freedom that people like Stallman talk about.
At the end of the day there is only freedom, or no freedom, anything in between is still not freedom.
Their drivers are stunning and they are completely open.
2.6.28 and 2.6.29 have some really neat stuff for Intel cards.
I've had a Thinkpad with i915 in it now for three years.
Not ONCE during that time I've gotten properly accelerated 3D without any issues.
Very simple test subject, Google Earth.
Back at Xorg 6.8 it was simply unaccelerated and didn't work at all (had to set some environment variable so it would work).
Upgrade: When zooming in, the screen would go all foggy (bug in Mesa versions before 7.1).
Upgraded now to Xorg 7.4. Intel driver 2.4.x. Cloud bug went away, but suffering from this issue:
https://bugs.freedesktop.org/show_bug.cgi?id=17397
Beside these, throughout the whole time there's been a bunch of window issues. For example, if you drag any window (any popup that gearth generates) over the main window, there's horrible flicker.
So my experience with Intel stuff has been pure crap so far.
I'm looking forward to those 2.6.28 and the GEM stuff, maybe they'd finally make my GFX work.
Bah, using expression "mesa less than 7.1" made slashdot think it's some tag and ate half of my post. Reposting..
Who owns the IP rights to the design of your grass skirt?
All I want is a secure system where it's easy to do anything I want. Is that too much to ask ~~ Randall Munroe
That's my point, really. The developers aren't trying to make you and me happy. They've said they're not happy with the closed source drivers, so they're continuing to work on open drivers for those cards.
Use the closed source drivers if you're happy with them. Nobody is stopping you. But the people working on the open drivers aren't doing it for you. They're doing it because they want or need open drivers. They're not going to stop just because you don't see the point.
The graphics chip doesn't have an open API. http://wiki.openmoko.org/wiki/Smedia_Glamo_3362
Phew, thank god this argument only could ever apply to gaming cards!
While I entirely agree with your point, can you please give an example of this happening. I don't remember reading of such thing. Are you sure you aren't making the whole "hardware manufacturers suing" thing up? While the final goal should be that proprietary firmware is not included in a free system, unlike with proprietary software in general, proprietary firmware has not created such direct troubles... so far.
The goal is nice, and I'm behind it, but being a bit down to earth, at least by not exaggerating the problem. I have mixed feelings about the requirement that the blobs get excluded. On one hand, it should be clear that they shouldn't be a part of a free system, but on the other, it seems that this is the wrong way to go with the problem. I already bought that hardware, so making it harder for me to get it working doesn't seem to be helping that much, and is certainly not improving the freedom for anyone, at least not in the short term.
I can't say what it will happen in the long term, but I still think that the best way to with this issue is to advocate freedom respecting hardware (or even free hardware, as suggested by another poster in the discussion), and to create a freedom compatible hardware campaign.
Refusing to give a distro the free label, because they chose to help you with the hardware you paid for is a bit harsh. Refusing to give the free label to the hardware in question, on the other hand, if this label has gained a significant recognition, will be wonderful. Of course, that's sounds almost impossible to achieve, but it's a better way, in my humble opinion.
These limits to your choices are not a sacrifice for your freedom. As freedom in your example means to be able to make your choices according to your requirements, not the availability of the choices that will fulfil all your requirements.
Here we are talking about freedom on another level, and it is how unrestrained you are in your work with the computer system, and the aim is to create a system in which you don't get any forced restrictions, which can be abused. Being disallowed or prevented to do these things with software is an example of a real freedom restriction.
The hardware is removing part of your freedom. At that moment you aren't affected much by this, as neither this is abused, nor it is limiting anything important that you could do. Still, in the long term, if the issue is overlooked, it might lead to many trouble. And it is already creating issues with creating free systems. So doing something about the issue is good in the end.
It doesn't mean restricting you from using the said hardware, just putting this hardware at a little disadvantage, which will draw the line on what is acceptable, and will push the things in the direction that you get more freedom with the hardware in the future.
The aim to create a free phone is also a step in the right direction. While not really that usable, and therefore not helping anyone, it is taking us in the right direction.
Making it less commercially viable?
Pfftt, I don't care ... never made money off it in the first place.
"I would rather have a solid card with a binary blob"
And one day, Nvidia will actually provide a blob that's actually solid. I expect Nouveau to outdo it first, though.
http://rocknerd.co.uk
Why not let them define what they think Freedom is and then, if you agree with it, use it.
you don't, so don't use FSF's definition of freedom.
Though you'll find that your definition of freedom was promulgated by someone else, so there goes YOUR freedom...
Moron.
Manufacturers have been asked for free redistribution licenses and refused. I'm not aware of any manufacturers suing for distributing their blobs without permission, yet.
How we know is more important than what we know.
And a fully free OS helps me know that the hardware I want will work properly, not just with the OS the driver writer thought they had to sell for.
Now, if you don't like that, then don't make your purchasing decision based on the FSF free moniker. But I want it, so don't tell them to abandon it. The changes don't harm you and help me and getting rid of them harms me without doing anything to help you. So keeping them is the best solution.
If it helps you to remove it, why the FUCK do you get helped? And I still get harmed.
Yeah because forking it is the only sensible response, not talking about their concerns. Christ, do you even think about what you're saying?
To quote Wikipedia: [Citation needed]
What you're saying would go directly against Debian's free software guidelines.
With closed firmware and driver I can break FCC regulations with OFFICIAL sources: download the Japanese driver and firmware.
I now break, with the 100% aid of the hardware manufacturer, the FCC regulations. Have been able to for YEARS. Yet the FCC haven't killed the company for it. Why? BECAUSE THAT REASON IS A LIE.
It's only there because an open spec shows that the only difference between the high-end and low-end card is the driver. The only difference between the cheapest Taiwan clone and the highest spec and price 3Com wireless card is the driver. And so you can see the commoditisation and the profits go down.
THAT is why they don't release open definitions.
If their bleat were true, how come allowing the same hardware to load the japanese firmware doesn't cause the FCC to punish the company for breaking regs?
says:
The only problem is that firmware typically comes with a restrictive license which does not have redistribution in mind. In many cases, firmware redistribution is prohibited entirely, or the situation is, at best, ambiguous. Thus, for example, the Prism54 firmware page reads as follows:
We do not yet have a re-distribution license for [the firmware files] by Intersil (or globalspanvirata or Conexant) but since Intersil wrote the original GPL driver and then supported the Open Source community in maintaining it, we figure it's only fair we're allowed to redistribute them here. Our official permission is pending.
In today's legal climate, the "we figure it's only fair" license strikes some users as inadequate. Distributors, fearful of being sued, really need to have a license which makes their right to redistribute the firmware clear. Without that license, most of them will not ship the device firmware, and the distribution will not support the hardware in any sort of easy way. So attempts to get vendors to put their firmware under a reasonable license have been going on for years.
The situation really hasn't changed in the last 4 years.
How we know is more important than what we know.
The UltraSPARC T2 is open source. You can download the Verilog for it, and with a big enough FPGA you can run it. Or you can run it in a simulator, or send it off and get it fab'd. You can take the core and incorporate it into a larger design with some custom accelerators (it has a very clean coprocessor interface for doing this) and get that fab'd. It has good performance and good performance per Watt for a lot of workloads.
Open source does not been designed by hobbyists and does not mean without commercial backing. If you make improvements to the T2 design and release your changes, then Sun may well incorporate them in the T3, or if they don't, you can get someone else to manufacture the chips for you.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
RedHat Enterprise Linux is not under the GPL. Fedora is not under the GPL. Ubuntu is not under the GPL. Certain parts of all of these are under the GPL, however they are distributed with some GPL-incompatible components (e.g. Apache). The 'mere aggregation' clause of the GPL means that the GPL does not apply to any of these.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
Way back in the day, nvidia was the first graphic card company to support 3d for Linux
Really? Because I remember running GLQuake with my VooDoo 2 under Linux before nVidia existed.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
I'm not sure how good an open source chip could get
That depends on what you mean. How good a chip designed by amateurs in their spare time could get is an open question, but there are open source chips that are pretty good.
In fact, this is why it's in the interest of the manufacturers to put part of the drivers into the device itself: It becomes easier to reach new parts of the market - in fact if all problematic parts of the driver are hardware-side one needs to just provide some "harmless" specs to the OSS community and let them create their own driver at zero cost. Also, if those driver parts are sufficiently OS-agnostic one can easily support new versions of Windows... which should make this interesting for at least Nvidia.
USE HOT GRITS WITH STATUE OF NATALIE PORTMAN (NAKED AND PETRIFIED)
If I read that right, the documentation for a free system - say, a library FAQ - can't include any mention of a commercially-published book, unless that book is also available under an appropriately free license online?
Yeesh.
It's a short hop and a jump from here to declaring that free browsers should not allow one to browse to sites on the web that mention the advantages of nonfree software.
I wonder what the free software movement would be like if Sony v. Universal had gone the other way. The VCR could pirate movies, but it also had "significant noninfringing uses". Without that, computers (which surely have some infringing uses) would never have developed most of their capabilities, would not have become popular, and would not have made the Internet a commercially viable medium.. which would prevent the FSF from being more than an academic curiosity. Yet now, they seem determined to all but ban any "infringing information" from the free-software universe.
"I want a distro that makes my hardware work without a ton of fucking around because somebody philosophically disagreed with a driver. I also respect those who would rather not use such things."
You want freedom, but only if you dont have to defend it yourself.
AFAIK, the specific driver in question of the article you quote, the Prism54, now has an open soft-mac firmware, but others are, of course, worse off. The issue I have is with your claim that Debian has asked for permission to distribute firmware (which in turn doesn't give users the permission to redistribute, which I would find very strange). They have packages like firmware-ralink in the non-free section, but even there, redistribution is explicitly permitted.
From a plain practical point of view I don't really care about proprietary blob or not, not because the later one wouldn't be nice, but because the problem most often starts much earlier. Just finding compatible hardware is already the biggest problem, since companies tend to label their stuff by weird and useless names, that give you no hint if its Linux compatible or not, because quite often the name stays the same, but the underlying chipsets changes. For a start I would already be very happy if hardware companies would label their devices properly and simply let you know if they are Linux compatible or not, many already are, but often you only find that out after you plug the stuff in.
The point is that the author of the article is Bruce Byfield and he is known as a news troll. There is nothing wrong in projects which try to extend the realm of free software by going into free hardware.
As of the philosophical concerns we know that proprietary drivers for Linux often lack quality (Linux is not an important platform for hardware manufacturers) and we can't fix them.
... and follow the magic linky.
This treats users like children who can't make their own informed choices ... "tsk tsk, shouldn't talk about options" ... I believe free/libre software can stand on its' own merits, and doesn't need to employ FUD, especially raising the FUD about how you might not be a free distro if you include instructions on how someone can reinstall their proprietary system w/o having to nuke their whole machine, including their free/libre OS, first. This isn't just a brain-fart on their part. It's out and out wrong.
Fucking soup nazis are everywhere ...
But if you listen to the FSF definition, consider alternate definitions, viewpoints and sets of values, think for yourself about the definitions, viewpoints and values, and then make up your own mind based on what you have heard and thought---and not just by picking one, unless that's the conclusion you came to half-way independently---you have not only kept your freedom, but actively exercised it.
Maybe you should consider ALL the consequences ...
So if a user sets up a dual-boot system, you CANNOT include instructions for them to re-install their proprietary OS. If they're a n00b and they need both, their only option at that point is to nuke the machine. You can't tell them how to re-install just their proprietary crap - that's "unacceptable."
That's wrong. It's censorship because of the chilling effect it will have, esp. when you consider the source.
It's also unethical, because it has the effect of holding uses' data hostage
not having the freedom to run it on your hardware because it's completely useless?
Wrong. I have the freedom to run gentoo on my rusty old P1 100MHz box with a 2 gig disk. It isn't going to work; the portage tree itself (~= package lists and install scripts) takes up five gigs. Compiling GNU Hello would take too long even if I do it --without-mail-reader.
What I lack is the ability to make it work and make it useful, not the freedom to do it.
I can buy a system that will work with what I have, and then have complete freedom. Buying software liberation seems to be harder than buying the right hardware for your free software.
If the device manufacturers had put the firmware in ROM (flash/EEPROM/whatever) attached to the peripheral rather than downloaded by the driver, does that really change anything?
No that doesn't change anything. Both are unethical. The right thing to do is to release the source for that firmware, so the users may modify it to gain the best use of their hardware.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
BSD has the solution to the binary blob dilemma from a licensing standpoint. But that's not the only important standpoint.
It's also important to put pressure on manufacturers to get rid of that crap by building the default firmware into their hardware, which only costs pennies nowadays so it's not a huge hardship.
In that respect, the antagonism that free software advocates have against binary blobs is actually a good thing for everyone.
If everyone had the same short-term selfish goals as yourself, we would still be living in a proprietary world where no-one has the freedom to do anything with their software.
Isn't it obvious that the FSF and similar are doing it for the long-term benefits? If everyone always accepts binary drivers, there is no incentive for change. Sometimes that may mean sacrifices in the short-term, but it will pay off in time.
Thank God we aren't all sheeple after instant gratification like you.
The Debian Free Software Guidelines (paragraph 8) clearly says that "License Must Not Be Specific to Debian".
http://www.debian.org/social_contract
Like the article tells, Debian developers are currently negotiating if the firmware blobs should be removed before or after the Lenny release. In any case, Debian developers are removing all the kernel binary blobs from their main repository and they won't distribute any software where the distribution license is not the same for everyone.
AFAIK, the Debian installer for Lenny already checks your hardware and it prompts for additional non-free packages of drivers or firmware (which the user needs to download separately from the installer) if your hardware needs them to work properly. Then it's up to the user to decide if non-free drivers or firmware will be installed.
I believe that the OP referred to that OpenBSD have been quite strong in their opposition to blobs in the OS. On the other hand they don't seem to mind unfree firmware.
Spelling/grammar nazis welcome (English is not my first language and I am trying to improve my spelling/grammar)
[Stallman's philosophy that "A free system must not assist users in obtaining nonfree information" is ridiculous. How does this promote freedom?]
Freedoms conflict; you have to decide which you think are the most important freedoms. Stallman's philosophy promotes the freedoms he thinks are the most important. Your philosophy promotes the freedoms you think are important. That doesn't make any one of them wrong or ridiculous; it simply means that the two of you rank freedoms by importance differently.
But at the end of the day, it's a value judgment. Those are inherently outside the realm of right and wrong.
Consider this: if your country outlaws slavery, then your personal liberty is protected. But it costs you a different freedom: you're not free to enter into a one-sided contract that in practice would make you a slave.
Your freedom to kill people has been severely limited. In return, other people can't kill you. You're not allowed to drive in any speed you want on public roads; in return, you get some traffic safety.
See also http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberal_paradox (it's off on a tangent, but who doesn't love a healthy dose of game theory in the morning? ;))
Sure.. I'm sure they published the design information for all the chips in the device and have got patent release. Yep.. At some point, the proprietary rubber hits the road.
(You're free to build your own computer using dual triodes with the designs from Eccles&Jordan.. those are probably well out of patent by now)
RMS and FSF are really pushing it too far. Their agenda subconsciously is to prevent people from making money from their work.
Every time I've heard RMS say anything, he's explicit about freedom 0 (the freedom to share) also covering sharing in return for money (i.e. selling). He's been selling emacs support: if you paid him $200 per hour and he'd hack up whatever you wanted. The FSF has been paying people to write pieces of GNU (in RMS terminology). ISTR RMS saying he STR grep was written in this way. You can buy GNU/FSF-branded merchandise and a signed copy of "Free Software, Free Society" on either gnu.org or fsf.org. All the articles in FSFS are also on gnu.org...
"Oh noes RMS hates monies". That's flat out wrong, and the records shows it very clearly to everyone who looks at it.
I agree that the BIOS must be free. It runs on the host CPU, and malware/spyware in the BIOS can do just about anything - especially with virtual machine technology. I am glad that FSF is insisting on open BIOS.
However, we are talking about *device* firmware here. You know, like inside your disk drive or USB wireless stick. Are they going to insist that their mice and keyboards have open firmware? Yes, open/free hardware is a worthy project, but it really should not try to piggy back on free *software*.
I don't know about GP, but I don't need "freedom" on my computer - I just want to get things done. Freedom (in FSF definition) is sometimes essential to that goal, sometimes merely helpful, sometimes irrelevant. But by itself, it has no value.
What do you mean, now? The perception of nVidia has always been the same. "Crap, it's not Open Source, but hey at least it works. Oh well."
I brought up this point with RMS a couple or 3 years ago. If a "blob" is an FPGA code, and if the hardware is such the the FPGA code is is pointless without the hardware, do you really want the source to the FPGA code?
This is a distinction that must be made over simple drivers. I think he concurred, but I never heard.
Even though it may be a very popular chip, the way it's hooked up makes it hopelessly proprietary.
The next thing to remember is to put next things next.
Obviously having source code is better than not. At no point did I assert otherwise.
My point is that sometimes you just have to be happy with what other people are willing to give you. Perhaps it is just a binary; perhaps it is a preassembled circuit board with no instructions.
However, if you are not allowed to hack that item as it is to the best of your ability and share it with other people, you don't really want it. It is best to steer clear of it, and help create something that is really yours to hack and share.
The fact of the matter is that almost all hardware devices use some kind of firmware to manage design complexity. This includes CPUs as well as many device chips.
This debate is about whether there is any real difference if the firmware is in ROM, (flash-)ROM or RAM, needing re-loading at each re-set from manufacturer provided and developed data which determines the nature of his device. This could easily be a generic cpu+io device with firmware determined personality.
I am sorry, firmware that you must download does not make software less free. If you want a free HARDWARE debate, do that, but dont waste all our time because of mis-understanding.
Not having any hardware would, unfortunately, curtail one's freedom to compute at all.
There has to be a line you draw for the simple reason that hardware patents are the legal mechanism that makes it possible to research-and-design new products as they alow the designer to profit from their design (when nt abused, as they often are)....
If you want intellectually free hardware.. well the answer might be the answer often given to feature requests by newcomers to OSS - get the specs and design it yourself.
I have been a user for about 10 years. This ends Feb 2014. The site's been ruined. I'm off. Dice, FU
It does, however, require some variant of Flash -- I applaud efforts like Gnash, but ultimately, it's exactly as much a "solution" to Flash as Wine is a solution to a lack of native apps.
It means that ultimately, I have to use the real Adobe Flash, because some things will require it. About the only way that will change is if Adobe either releases the Flash source, or starts heavily supporting one of the free alternatives.
Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
No, Nvidia sucks because those binary blobs just fucking suck. Go to any Linux forum, scan the front page and see who's having video trouble. SHOCKER! It's all the poor bastards using Nvidia cards! Your argument might hold water if those binary blobs weren't the source of so many needless problems that could be fixed if they'd just let us.
No, we don't need them.
Hey, I finally got my first freak! Took you long enough!
So let me get this straight:
If I went to a vegetarians conference there should be both a big sign "Delicious steak dinners two blocks down" and someone waiting to give those interested a drive there.
Anything else would be no different than censorship?
I was more talking about devs that keep trying to block nvidia, or block blobs, or block whatever.
This thread is chock full of examples of why people are against blobs. They make troubleshooting an exercise in frustration, obvious flaws cannot be fixed, and usually even once you figure out what a problem is the only solution is "you're fucked, use the nv driver." It's not some "death to the infidels" thing here (okay, maybe for some folks it is), there are good reasons for these decisions.
Hey, I finally got my first freak! Took you long enough!
Binary BLOBs are a huge problem. Not only are they bad for open development, the BLOBs I've had the displeasure of using have horrible reliability problems. My favorite was the RocketRAID driver for FreeBSD. When we sent a fourth hot spare to the datacenter and they plugged it in, the system crashed. There are also horrible security implications. And the hardware vendors will just arbitrarily decide they don't want to support the hardware anymore, and then you don't have a driver for newer kernels and you're screwed. The only OS that has taken a principled stand on this issue is OpenBSD. They do not allow binary BLOBs in their kernel, period. Linux people, you have a wonderful opportunity to use your clout to fight this. So quit being fat nerds in your moms basement and do it.
From what I understand creators of distributions aren't being coerced in following these guidelines and end-users aren't coerced into using a distribution that follows these guidelines. Seems it's entirely voluntarily to me. So, what's the problem?
Perfect is the enemy of done.
From what I understand creators of distributions aren't being coerced in following these guidelines and end-users aren't coerced into using a distribution that follows these guidelines. Seems it's entirely voluntarily to me. So, what's the problem?
Camels' Nose Syndrome.
Simply put, their basic premise, that giving people information about non-free stuff is inherently "wrong" or somehow compromises free software values, is total bullshit, and should be denounced, so that they don't try to go further down that road ...
But don't expect free help from anyone else in how to use it. Go to the author/manufacturer. Not the FSF.
All it needs is not to be excluded from the market. It doesn't need to win against ANYONE, not even Microsoft. If only the developers used it, that is winning well enough to continue as long as the market isn't deliberately closed off to them.
That is why MS are boned: they think they MUST WIN. And you think they are competing. Shows how sad a life you live. It's not about winning or losing. It's all about doing what is interesting. No matter how often you win, you're still going to end up worm food.
No, that's bullshit. All of it.
1) There's nothing that forces a distributor not to include documentation. The only thing that would happen is that the FSF wouldn't recommend that distro. One major point here is that the FSF has absolutely no power whatsoever, so they are in no power to censor anything. There's no more chilling effect to this than there is to any other guideline that you may disagree with. Don't follow them if you don't like them. Pretending it's an attack on freedom of speech is stupid, dumb, imbecilic, moronic, fuckbrained, but it's not in any way correct.
2) You're confusing the user and the distributor. The FSF doesn't care whether you fill up your particular installation of some distro with documentation on how to install proprietary software. No user's data is held hostage, you're just being dumb.
When you let the FSF define what Freedom is, you've already lost it.
I'm sorry, but the FSF defines freedom in in regards to software. This article in particular is dealing with the definition of a free distro. We aren't, as I take your statement to mean, dealing with general human freedom, just the freedom we ought to have to use a thing.
Or i could say "What if mine and the FSF's ideas of this type of freedom are concurrent?"
I certainly haven't lost my freedom for thinking my thought of this freedom.
This sounds like the transition from Marxism to Communism to a Totalitarian state...all very scary :(
Yes, I do think so.
The UltraSPARC T1 and T2 are Open Source.
http://www.opensparc.net/about.html
Climate Progress - Hell and High Water
Nvidia has been the worst choice for a while now.
Intel drivers are the best, followed by AMD/ATI, although in that case, you currently have to carefully choose which card to get.
Climate Progress - Hell and High Water
Licenses and Kernels Oh My...
Here we are again, conflating two arguments, one dealing with OSS traditions and Licensing and Kernel Designs and inherent limitations with tradition kernel models we are still stuck with as mainstream.
The whole licensing arguments just in here, makes the MS free software license look halfway noble. And it also makes the MS licensing of OSes and software to businesses look like child's play in comparison to the horror stories that are appearing in the OSS movement.
Why should it be easier to read through MS licensing policies for Windows 2008 Server and CALs and all the other crap than it is to understand basic licensing of OSS?
Seriously, all the OSS licensing and 'schemes' by some of the founders are nothing but a minefield, and it comes down to licensing instead of WHAT IS POSSIBLE?
Why can't we just stuff the licensing contraints and go back to 'what is possible' and shared ideas from this?
Now we are arguing about shoving 'necessary' driver and firmware code into an OSS project in order for it to even work on many devices. Are people really going to give up WiFi or other technologies that are dependant on non-OSS code?
Why not stop here, reconsider the licensing, and kill it, and kill requirements for sharing at certain thresholds. If you look at MS, 99% of the reason they haven't opened up more of their technology is that the licensing involved in doing so. The same goes for them in working with OSS software, as soon as they 'work' with OSS software, they are then required to open up their own technology, and this is just as crazy and also is killing OSS.
If you look at Mono and Moonlight for ONE example, MS specifically didn't develop the Silverlight or .NET CLR inside Microsoft, was because of the insane Licensing of the OSS world, that would have required MS to split open things from Windows that are not even related to Silverlight or .NET.
Why not start from scratch, put some new kernel ideas on the table with an abstracted driver layer that will allow people to be pure OSS users and make the layer agnostic to the core OS framework. Then from this either VM or layer the kernel so that non-OSS content can be easily added to the kernel technology without violating any licensing or even having to worry about it.
Right now, it would almost be better if Microsoft did create a more enhanced *nix subsystem for NT, supporting Linux and other upper level kernel API sets. Then you would have the abstraction and drivers and yet run in a full OSS sandbox that you can do anything you want to do. (And no this is not my suggestion, but it makes more sense than the insane licensing and arguing and splitting in the OSS community we are seeing once again.)
This is like the late 80s all over again with *nix and why it failed to make it to the desktop back then as well. Instead of fragmenting over what is proper and instead of arguing licenses, why not STOP, go from a generic DO WHAT IS POSSIBLE license and create a new kernel technology that is extensible enough to layer non-pure code outside the core kernel.
And no, I am not talking about frankensteining Linux as people are trying to do, as we could jump past all the inherent problems of the Linux kernel from locking crap, the frame buffer and being horribly non-layered. Even Linux itself has expected hardware core support needed, as the three modes of the VM expects the hardware to be there and requires emulation and/or firmware to supplement the missing hardware.
In contrast NT, also has hardware expectations, but that is where the semi-micro nature of NT using the HAL comes into play to ensure the bottom layer of NT is always providing the hardware expectations, and it is properly layered so that porting is actually easier than Linux and the layers are not mixed so that HAL doesn't have to compromise NT upper kernel layers. The OSS world knows how this works, and can build a better kernel than Linux or BSD or especially BSD/MACH
>Despite the HTML5 effort, YouTube still requires Flash.
Because HTML5 is still very young and implementations of the video tag are even younger, and only in beta or alpha products.
Climate Progress - Hell and High Water
>Youtube does not require flash it works with libswfdec and I think gnash too.
YouTube does require Flash; it does not require Adobe Flash Player.
Climate Progress - Hell and High Water
To you it may have no value by itself.
Others may feel differently.
Climate Progress - Hell and High Water
Okay I might be wrong but I'm fairly sure i'm not. Firmware is not part of a driver, firmware is the option rom and/or code that the micro-controller or what ever other 'brains' the add-on devices have. The driver interacts with this. So if the firmware hasn't been reverse engineered(or at least how it reacts to external input on the bus has been determined) one may have to use closed-source DRIVERS, not firmware. Unless we are flashing the rom(s)on our various hardware firmware has nothing to do with this debate, its the drivers.
But think about how often Nvidia update their drivers, you would have to flash the rom chip everytime.
The mainboard manufacturers have figured out how to do this safely. So can the GPU manufacturers. Fr example, two flash chips and an emergency ROM would make for a very smooth upgrade:
1. The card flashes the upgrade onto the flash chip it's currently not using.
2. The card tells the OS it's going to switch to the new driver.
3. The card switches over to the new driver, reinitializes and tells the OS it's ready.
4. The OS displays a dialog box like the one Windows shows when switching resolutions: "The new driver has been loaded. Does the graphics card work correctly? [Yes] [No] This dialog will automatically select 'No' in 30 seconds."
5. If the OS signifies user satisfaction the new driver is used, otherwise the card loads the old one and reinitializes.
Should the card be unable to work with either driver it falls back to the backup ROM where a known-good (probably reduced-functionality) driver resides. Combined with a smart protocol that allows the card and the OS to tell each other about/change their state and a graphics infrastructure that allows dynamic reloading of the driver this could mean that you can update the GPU driver and switch to the new one without rebooting or even restarting X11.
It might even possible (although only useful for power users) to install two alternative drivers on the two chips and switch between them on the fly - for example one driver which minimizes power consumption by powering down parts of the card and one which gives good gaming performance. Of course, both of these would have to come from the manufacturer.
USE HOT GRITS WITH STATUE OF NATALIE PORTMAN (NAKED AND PETRIFIED)
What's worst is that legally in order to maintain copyrights you need to make reasonable efforts at protecting those rights.
That is a feature of trademark law, not copyright law. Look it up
Every time a Slashdot user mentions diligence in defending your copyright or patent, someone who has never heard of estoppel by laches claims that only trademarks need diligence. Laches: look it up. And while you're at it, look up other estoppel defenses.
Your hatred of Bruce Byfield is well-documented, so no need to go there. Your attacks on other Slashdot users are more worrisome, as is your massive gaming and disruption of this community.
I'm not sure what label you're referring to with regard to the free software community and I'm not familiar enough with the HRC or what happened there, so it's hard to respond to that. The labels I see most often are free software and open source and members of these movements get along quite well most of the time, they work together and write a lot of great software. The philosophies of these two movements aren't the same and that difference leads to radically different conclusions when it comes to proprietary software.
Digital Citizen
I understand the moral conflict, but it's not like I could buy a complete set of open hardware, and even if I could, I'd just be compromising on a different front.
Visiting here would be a good start:
http://www.coreboot.org/Supported_Motherboards
I don't recall the FSF or the free software movement ever arguing that more choices are good when those choices include freedom-denying software. I think they're not going to fall for a bad argument that would end up offering freedom-denying software as a recommended option alongside freedom-respecting software as if they're all good choices. That movement and that organization, after all, focus on how to respect and protect all user's software freedoms. Hence it makes sense that they would not offer documentation that presents proprietary software in the same light as software that respects the freedoms they fight for. And all of this only goes for what the GNU Project will endorse, not what you're allowed to talk about.
The opposite is the case for proprietors: I don't think Apple and Microsoft are interested in offering you documentation on how to liberate yourself from their proprietary multimedia codecs, their proprietary office software, their proprietary operating systems, etc. The difference is in what you're free to do: free software systems don't lock you into their software. Proprietors are always looking for ways to lock out competition and lock you into what they offer. There's even proprietary software where the license claims to restrict your speech: at least one version of Microsoft's Frontpage license includes language that says something to the effect of you agree not to use the program to disparage Microsoft.
Your way of looking at things, where a program's freedom doesn't matter and we should judge by function for a particular task, gets to the heart of the big difference between the open source and free software movements:
I think you're misreading the FSF's article and overreacting.
Digital Citizen
all firmware in openbsd is freely [re]distributable.
"Freedom (in FSF definition) is sometimes essential to that goal, sometimes merely helpful, sometimes irrelevant. But by itself, it has no value."
Freedom by itself, as it, not being applied to anything has no value, and makes no sense, you cant have freedom of/from nothingness.
Software Freedom has probably helped everybody indirectly in some small way, it has allowed the development and maintenance of a software infrastructure that effects a big chunk of society (whether they are aware of it or not).
To say something like, Software Freedom doesnt help me use my ipod (or some other specific task) so it has no value is missing the bigger picture.
I see the FSF has gone off the deep-end again.
'hard' Firmware or ROM = Read Only Memory. Firmware burnt to a physical chip. Defines how hardware behaves.
'soft' Firmware or blob= Loaded at boot/merged at compile-time. Pretty much ROM in a file on the hard-drive. Defines how hardware behaves.
What is the functional difference between:
1. A board with binary firmware in ROM that can be used with linux_kernel_module_foo.
2. A board with a binary firmware file loadable at boot/merged at compile time that can be used with linux_kernel_module_foo.
You can disassemble the ROM to look at the machine code if you are so inclined.
You can disassemble the binary firmware file to look at the machine code if you are so inclined.
You can see learn how to rewrite the interface by reading the source of linux_kernel_module_foo.
You can functionally use the board by using linux_kernel_module_foo.
'soft' Firmware is here to stay, as it allows easy and rapid updates for manufacturers. As long as the manufacturers supply the linux community with instructions on how to interface with their hardware via their firmware (hard or soft), why should we care if there is a binary blob or an actual ROM?
Reyk Floeter, an OpenBSD developer, explains his position like this:
Spelling/grammar nazis welcome (English is not my first language and I am trying to improve my spelling/grammar)
only in beta or alpha products.
Not true -- the latest released Safari supports it, using QuickTime. I believe this isn't the first version to include it, either.
I don't think it's too early to start designing webpages for this, with a progressive fallback to Flash if HTML5 isn't available. I doubt YouTube will be the first to do this...
Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
I'm old enough to have written code in the public domain, before the new-fangled
Berne Copyright Convention came to the fore in 1986 to change the default on
assignment of literary works (aka software) "fixed in a tangible medium".
Writing code this way was possible if you worked for a university or the U.S. government
while managers (and especially lawyers) looked the other way. Much of this got neatly
bottled up into the form of BSD Unix -- you just put your code up on UUCP, it propagated
(without the use of @ signs, even!), and if it won in a bakeoff it became part of the Unix DNA.
Even though the two- or three-clause BSD license was overkill compared to
true PD (public domain), BSD via its variant licensing remains a breath of
fresh air next to GNU. Cute recursivity and a good position on software
patents notwithstanding, Stallmanites at M.I.T offered up complicated restrictions
compared to the Berkeley spirit.
What does the hackjob Linux clone of Unix actually offer over BSD in practice?
In the world of science and engineering, it's just a "me too" product.
BSD evils supposedly included Microsoft forking and hiding the TCP/IP stack,
but Apple software has now consigned Windows to history's dustbin.
Apple is supposedly evil for running with BSD by elegantly layering
their inscrutable APIs atop it. But the underlying foundation of BSD
is free, for anyone to add value for profit or for non-profit.
Perhaps it's too late for a return to the yesteryore of public domain,
but GNU folk have got themselves all worked up into their own
hairball of complexity over Talmudic interpretations of licensing
in silly spy-vs.-spy games. The BSD "license" keeps this all dead simple.
>Once again, the FSF takes a noble goal to a loony extreme.
As far as i understand FSF nothing has changed. Their position was always that everyone should have the same freedom related to software (files of functional work) on your computer.
So the shift doesn't come from the FSF but from the hardware manufactures. At that point of time where they pull the firmware out of the hardware and put it into a file of my computer the same qestion arrises as for any other software: Why should one person have more power over this file on my computer than i?
As i understand it the position of the FSF was always "We are all in the same boat". So everyone should be able to change it or nobody. Now that the firmware is just a file on my harddisk, just a pice of software, why should the right person (employee of the right company) be able to modify it and i'm not? If you allow this compromise for firmware you have to answer the question "and why don't make the same compromise for a driver, or for a binary which does foo?". At the end it is all the same. It is a file on my computer which does some functional work and in the eyes of the FSF this should alway bee free softwar so that everyone has the same freedom and noone has power over you and your computing.
Support Free Software! Join FSFE's Fellowship: http://fellowship.fsfe.org
And just to rub it in, the "nv" driver outperforms the nvidia blob in 2D. You'd expect an AGP card to at least be able to handle something like scrolling terminal text in a bitmap font...
That is a logic design, not a design for the transistors used to create the logic.
There is a huge amount of research into building transistors down at the tiny scale they are at today, and these are not free and open source designs. IBM and Intel are at the forefront of this, both have massive patent portfolios.
Bavarian Purity Law of Rice Krispie Squares: Rice Krispies, Marshmallows, Butter, Vanilla.
Look at the url that was posted in the story - it's from gnu.org, not the FSF. While they're pretty much one and the same, they decided to issue this as GNU policy, not FSF policy.
Here, I'll make it EASY for you: http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-system-distribution-guidelines.html
This is more than just a FSF "policy statement."
What part of "licensing@gnu.org" don't you get?
IOW, gnu.org policy is that including documentation telling others how to recover from a crash of their proprietary system in a dual-boot is a no-no.
You have a point on everything except the "one can easily support new versions of Windows". I think they would see this as a downside. If their old hardware doesn't work, and they can blame microsoft, then they get to sell new hardware.
OTOH, if the new hardware doesn't work either they simply get bad PR. See Nvidia and Vista.
USE HOT GRITS WITH STATUE OF NATALIE PORTMAN (NAKED AND PETRIFIED)
The FSF are a bunch of close minded zealots, worse then MS and Adobe in this regard. I agree with the core of their philosophy, but not to the point of opposing not only closed source but many open source licenses including the BSD licenses. Free as in beer code for embedded devices is not unethical, its useful and practical. You don't need to modify hardware, same goes for the firmware. If for some unlikely reason you do want to modify the hardware, I doubt it would be covered by warranty. Would you prefer open source firmware that if modified voided the warranty? It's a tricky balance to strike, and I think the BSD team has it right - they don't need to see the code, it's part of the hardware. They just need the hardware to function as a black box.
If you blindly let others define what is freedom and what not, yes, you've lost it, but nobody does this. People reads the points made by the FSF, and either agree or disagree, they don't blindly follow the definition.
Also, you forget that the definition of free software by the FSF, and the definition of open source by the OSI, yield the almost the same results when applied to which licenses fulfill the definition and which not. And when two different sets of people, with a very different point of view on the origin of the problem (or the goals that try to reach), end giving an almost identical definition, you can be pretty sure that concept is quite clear.
Look at my email address, please. Woosh.
For large sets, this will be our guide even unto death, for the LORD will work for each type of data it is applied to...