What is the current thinking in the Linux Kernel community on firmware blobs?

[Brian Gupta <brian.gupta@brandorr.com>]

Obviously, consensus is that blobs were, and still are, essential for
Linux's status as a popular commercially viable OS.

I'm wondering at the same time if they are considered a "necessary
evil", and wonder if there would be support [1] to try to work together
with vendors to free the firmware source as GKH did with
RAlink to free/open their driver?

Bearing in mind the immediate goal isn't to eliminate them altogether,
but to reduce the number, especially for newer and more popular
hardware.

I say this because I believe that Debian, the Linux Foundation , and
the FSF actually have many common goals, and we absolutely need to
work to find common ground to continue to improve the status quo.

I strongly believe the Debian community is in a good shape to
contribute here, if we can focus on these goals.

Thanks,
Brian

[1] - http://www.kroah.com/log/linux/ralink.html