Re: Social Contract GR's Affect on sarge
On Sun, May 02, 2004 at 06:45:11PM -0700, Thomas Bushnell, BSG wrote:
>
> (The reason I say *old or new* is because the old one applied the DFSG
> to all software, and labelling a piece of software "firmware" doesn't
> make it any less software, for the same reason that calling a dog's
> tail a "leg" makes it into one.)
>
Firmware is a component of hardware. Also processors uses microcode to
work. So, do we are wrong in calling that 'hardware'? Are you of the idea
that also processors are software? That's an interesting concept.
Again, the separation among hardware and software is damn tiny in modern
electronic. Don't be shallow in cosidering firmware software
because it's loaded on demand, and microcode not-software because it's written
once into the cpu. That's incidental and could change in a near future.
My idea is that firmware is an extension of the hardware and peripherals.
Point. It's managed by the OS as a black box, for the same reason that
any OS driver uses a piece of hardware as a black box, with or
without firmware loading. And I think that none of the kernel hackers
think differently.
--
Francesco P. Lovergine
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