Re: Microcode license [#3]
Giacomo Catenazzi <cate@math.ethz.ch> writes:
> 2) It is difficult to say that microcode is a program:
> there are surelly many entry points (one per instruction),
> many exit point. Instruction are executed partly in parallel,...
> It is too hardware dependent. You can see it also as a immage for
> a chip. Then the electric flow are influenced by this immage (like
> photocopy machines), but relly it is not a program (AFAIK, the
> intel microcode is a list of changes of order of u-instructions
> in instruction). But until we have not full (or also some) Intel
> microcode and CPU internal build documentation, we cannot know
> if it is software...
Oh, please! We know it's software. They call it *microcode*.
Having many entry points, parallel processing, hardware dependencies:
all these are characteristics of it, but it is still software.
It isn't hardware, precisely because you can upload *different*
microcodes and get different behavior. And Intel (IIUC) is preventing
people from having the liberty to change and alter how that
*programmable* function gets programmed.
> 3) You should be more contructive. Intel already changed the license
> because of Debian need. If you point to me exactly what is wrong
> and what changes should be taken, I can tell Intel to improve the
> license for the second time.
They should conform to the DFSG. How hard is that? Relabeling a
dog's tail to be a leg doesn't make it a leg. They need to make it
*free software*, not just try and redefine terms so that it isn't
software.
Thomas
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