Fedora not "free" enough for GNU?

[Rahul Sundaram]

Arthur Pemberton wrote:
> 2008/9/19 Ignacio Vazquez-Abrams <ivazqueznet at gmail.com>:
>> On Thu, 2008-09-18 at 08:58 -0400, jude ui wrote:
>>> And to repharse my question - Can't you guys reselse the firmware as
>>> opensource - are they prosperity drivers? (correct me if I'm wrong)
>> The firmware is not Fedora's to release. The hardware vendor releases it
>> as a binary blob due to at least one of 3 concerns:
>>
>> 1) Regulatory issues
>>
>> Hardware vendors need to prevent end-users from modifying the firmware
>> so that the hardware can not be driven outside legal ranges.
>>
>> 2) Intellectual "Property" issues
>>
>> Hardware vendors don't want other hardware vendors to know how they run
>> their hardware so that their design can't be copied or stolen.
>>
>> 3) Inability to build
>>
>> Firmware is usually code for some PLD or ASIC, which needs specialized
>> (and EXPENSIVE) compilers to build. Most people are unlikely to be able
>> to turn the source into the firmware.
> 
> 
> Only 3 seems valid to me. But I at least understand 1 and 2.

1 is a serious concern as well legally. Linux kernel now has a framework 
to support this.

http://lwn.net/Articles/294675/

Rahul