[Date Prev][Date Next] [Thread Prev][Thread Next] [Date Index] [Thread Index]

Re: LCC and blobs



hoi :)

On Sat, Dec 11, 2004 at 05:49:26PM -0500, Glenn Maynard wrote:
> If the driver has to be able to open the file and read the blob so it
> can send it to the device, there's a clear relationship and dependency
> between the driver and the blob: if you don't have a copy of the blob,
> the driver doesn't work.  (Spewing out "hardware error, firmware not
> loaded" doesn't count to me as "working".)

I have a PCMCIA card that lost its flash memory.
So suddenly its driver became non-free?

What about all those drivers for hardware that I don't own?
They don't work for me, yet I won't flag them as non-free.
We must not consider hardware when talking about free software.

Sending firmware to the device is not that different to sending some
magic initialization commands. Firmware should be treated as exactly
that: magic initialization data for the device.

-- 
Martin Waitz

Attachment: signature.asc
Description: Digital signature


Reply to: