Re: Social Contract GR's Affect on sarge

[tb@becket.net (Thomas Bushnell, BSG)]

Hamish Moffatt <hamish@debian.org> writes:

> > *Real* firmware is not software.  But *real* firmware is *firm*, that
> > is, you can't change it easily: it's in a ROM.  And nobody is asking
> > us to distribute it.
> 
> Now there's a bizarre twist on the idea that everything is software.

I don't know anyone who has said that "everything is software".

> Are you saying that firmware in ROM, which in most cases IS "programs,
> routines, and symbolic languages that control the functioning of the
> hardware and direct its operation"[1], is NOT SOFTWARE?

But no, I misspoke.  I'm happy to grant the stuff in the ROM is
software, in one sense, but not in another--it can't be changed (it
isn't *soft*).  For this reason, the term "firmware" has become
customary.

But the term firmware does not mean "whatever runs on the peripheral
device".  

Thomas