Re: [DRAFT] resolving DFSG violations
On Wed, Oct 29, 2008 at 2:01 AM, David Weinehall <tao@debian.org> wrote:
> As for the iwl3945 firmware, I do not know for sure whether it's written
> in C, assembler, or whatever else (I'm fairly certain it's NOT in some
> obscure 8-bit CPU or similar). Personally I wouldn't mind having
> the source code, but I do know, that if the choice is between either
> having the firmware in EEPROM or having it as a binary blob, I'd take
> the binary blob anytime.
It is fairly likely that it is written in C, since the firmware blob
contains the names of .c files that were probably used to compile it.
> For laptops running Intel chipsets, the most common wireless chipsets are
> iwl3945, iwl4965, and iwl 5000 these days. All of them requiring binary
> only firmware. With Intel's recent track record of releasing
> sources, it's reasonable to assume that they would have released the
> sources if they saw it as possible, so hoping for a source release seems
> fairly futile.
Intel have resolved my bug report about source code for the firmware
as wontfix, citing the FAQ about the FCC:
http://www.intellinuxwireless.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=1594
Personally I intend to switch to a more free-software friendly
wireless hardware provider as soon as is realistic. I considered doing
something similar to the prism54 FreeMAC project, but I have nowhere
near enough experience to even start such a thing.
--
bye,
pabs
http://wiki.debian.org/PaulWise
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