Re: fanatic

[Floris Bruynooghe <floris.bruynooghe@gmail.com>]

On Wed, Jun 06, 2007 at 07:18:24PM +0200, walter wrote:

> I didn't know rt2500, and atheros firmware are non free. This refute
> all I said.  But, correct me if I am wrong: is the firmware part of
> the OS or is it allocated in the card?

AFAIK the rt2500 doesn't require firmware, but the rt61 does.  Atheros
needs binary blobs in the kernel (again AFAIK), which is a lot worse
then firmware.

Firmware is code that gets executed on the peripheral device, in this
case the wireless card.  This can either live permanently on the card,
in an eeprom, or needs to be loaded onto the card by the OS every time
it wants to use the card.

In the first case usually everyone is happy.  But in the second there
tend to be two opinions: (1) If the firmware is saved in the OS it
should be free too, we see it therefore we want the right to thinker
with it.  (2) This is no different then a firmware in the eeprom as
it's non-free there too, you just never see it.

Many flamewars have been fought about which one is The One And Only
True Argument(tm).  Unfortunately both arguments are correct so you'll
just have to live with the two opinions as none of the two will ever
go away.

Regards
Floris

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