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Re: On the freeness of a BLOB-containing driver



Bruce Perens <bruce@perens.com> wrote:
> Is a driver that loads a BLOB Free Software? The problem is connected 
> with distribution. The BLOB is unquestionably software. It runs below 
> the bus, which is our /usual /demarcation between Free Software and the 
> rest of the system, but it starts life above the bus at boot time, and 
> *we have to distribute it.

In many cases, we do not have to distribute it. We could -
alternatively, we could use the copy that the user has on a CD
already[1].

Bruce, why do you keep sending HTML?

[1] This isn't true for a small set of drivers - the ipw2100 requires
different firmware for Linux and Windows.
-- 
Matthew Garrett | mjg59-chiark.mail.debian.devel@srcf.ucam.org



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