Re: Microcode license [#3]
Giacomo Catenazzi <cate@math.ethz.ch>:
> But there is annother difficult. To write BIOS we use assembler because
> we have much control to hardware, to write microcode I think they don't
> use any language, to be more direct. They write (maybe) directly the bit
> or byte. Thus there exists only binary files, so for DFSG: no source.
There probably is a source, but the compiler is probably top secret
and proprietary, so the source wouldn't be very useful to people
outside Intel.
> But: I can convince Intel to change the microcode license in a more
> liberal way, but I would never convince Intel to put documentation
> on microcode and to put microcode DFSG.
> Thus I think the first step is to have microcode so much free
> that it can be included in debian non-free.
Yes, definitely. The microcode will probably never be DFSG-free, but
please do try and get it into non-free.
> Then we must improve Linux (kernel) and Open Source enought to
> convince hardware manufacters to release microcodes and documentations
> in a DFSG compatible manner.
Maybe, but there would be very little practical benefit from having
DFSG-free microcode. Most of the arguments for free software don't
really apply to microcode. I work for a company that designs
microprocessors, so I might be interested in reading the microcode
source, if I could get my hands on it legally without signing an NDA,
but I very much doubt anyone would want to distribute modified
versions of it, for example.
Edmund
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