kernel-libre (hopefully 100% Free) for Fedora 8 and rawhide

Alexandre Oliva aoliva at redhat.com
Tue Mar 25 17:35:41 UTC 2008


On Mar 25, 2008, Les Mikesell <lesmikesell at gmail.com> wrote:

> Alexandre Oliva wrote:

>> The difference is that, when the firmware is embedded in the
>> controller, you can pretty much ignore it, and you got it from the
>> vendor anyway.

> And if it's broken as shipped you'd like it to stay that way?

People who care deeply for software freedom would rather not have them
at all, and if they do, they won't mind if it doesn't just work.  And
these are the people this alternate kernel is for.

>> But as firmware moves out of devices, because their vendors are too
>> cheap to add non-volatile memory, and prefer to provide them
>> separately and count on operating system distributors to help them
>> keep users helpless, why should we help them do it, and increase their
>> profit margins while at that?

> Because it gives us a better working product and the ability to keep
> it current.

If that's good enough for you, and you don't care about yourself being
able to customize it and so you're not willing to help others who
would rather be able to do that accomplish it, this won't make any
difference for you.  That's fine.

Even if you didn't get the firmware from Fedora (which is not what
this project is about), you could still get it from the vendor, who's
the one responsible for getting it to you anyway.

This doesn't take anything away from you.  Could you please respect
the wishes of those who care deeply about the freedom stated in
Fedora's mission, like we respect yours?

>>> That is, you don't have a choice of free vs. non-free, just working
>>> or not working.
>> 
>> The first choice is purchase and feed the monster, or purchase
>> something else.

> Do you have some examples of devices that work better with old
> firmware in rom?

How's that relevant?

Firmware in rom is bad because you *can't* fix it, and *nobody* can.

Non-Free firmware in prom is bad because *you* can't fix it, only the
vendor can.

If you'd rather feed the vendor who wants to keep you helpless, this
is not for you.  As for myself, I understand that vendor is behaving
unethically, and I won't endorse or support that behavior.  So I'd
rather use a 100% Free kernel.

>> Once you got it and you can't return it, you're stuck with it.  At
>> that point, it is indeed a matter of choice between keeping your
>> freedom or sacrificing it for convenience.

> I still don't see the difference in freeness whether the code is
> embedded or loaded.

In the case of Non-Free firmware, the vendor artificially introduced
means to stop you from making changes, while retaining this ability to
itself, for its own advantage.  In the case of ROM, it's nature that
gets in the way of your modifications, even if you got the complete
specs (which would be nice, BTW).

> Vendor-engineered code is the same either way and probably the best
> you'll get. What sacrifice do you see?

Mainly that, when the vendor uses prom rather than rom, the quality of
the firmware gets lower because the firmware can always be fixed
later.  But as long as only they can choose what to fix, you're worse
off.

>> ATM, Fedora doesn't give users this choice.  Fedora forces people to
>> choose between Fedora and freedom.

> "People" don't get freedom with GPL-restricted code, they get
> GPL-restricted code.

GPL-restricted?  Care to explain what you're talking about?

Are you by any chance misdirecting at the GPL the restrictions that
are imposed by copyright law, that the GPL selectively relaxes so as
to ensure that *every* user of the code gets the freedoms over it?
(and that are precisely the reason why these non-Free firmwares don't
belong in a GPLed program)

-- 
Alexandre Oliva         http://www.lsd.ic.unicamp.br/~oliva/
FSF Latin America Board Member         http://www.fsfla.org/
Red Hat Compiler Engineer   aoliva@{redhat.com, gcc.gnu.org}
Free Software Evangelist  oliva@{lsd.ic.unicamp.br, gnu.org}




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