Re: On the freeness of a BLOB-containing driver
On Sunday 12 Dec 2004 00:43, Bruce Perens wrote:
> 1. The manufacturer's concerns regarding the proprietary nature of
> information about their device that is below the bus.
> 2. The fact that misprogramming the device at that level can damage the
> hardware.
> 3. They aren't going to want to support more firmware versions than they
> have to.
4. Even if they are free to open the firmware, they will likely not be able to
supply the tools with which to build it. You're back in contrib.
It is also worth noting that some devices that have large complex firmware may
have no "default" firmware that can be loaded in flash in the factory, but a
different firmware for different markets and system integrators. Devices I
have seen like this include video codec chips and DVB tuners, I am sure there
are others.
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