Re: late for party (was Re: Proposal: The DFSG do not require source code for data, including firmware)
mjr@phonecoop.coop wrote:
>Searching OpenBSD mailing list archives for mails matching both keywords
>firmware and source found nothing. Are you sure it's in there?
Well, probably there is a reason if you have not found anything by
looking for "source"... With a two minutes google search of
"de Raadt firmware" I have found:
http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2004/10/29/1098992287663.html
De Raadt said that when a request was made to a vendor to 'open' their
firmware, "it just means we want clear distribution/redistribution
rights. We don't need the 'source code' to their firmware. There are no
intellectual property concerns."
(I do not understand why he received an award from FSF for this, BTW.)
And http://kerneltrap.org/node/6550:
Jeremy Andrews: What is it about binary firmware that you're willing to
ship it, versus binary blobs? How can you trust the firmware binary to
do what it should do? And what if the firmware has a bug?
Theo de Raadt: [...] But in the end, if we wish to support any such
devices, we must be practical. We must accept the risk that there is a
flaw in the firmware. [...] Of course, also note that we don't want to
become Hermes (the architecture of the Lucent/Prism/Symbol chip)
assembly language programmers... we have more than enough to do. Just a
specific example. Please, people, don't load us up with more tasks ;)
--
ciao,
Marco
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