Lars D. Nooden wrote: > > On Mon, 19 Mar 2007, Dave Anderson wrote: > > You've left out the extremely important fact that many vendors > > interpret acceptance of blobs by any "free" OS as validating their > > position of not releasing adequate documentation -- so accepting blobs > > (even when "there's no other choice") actively harms the anti-blob > > campaign. > > It harms more than just the campaign, it harms anyone wanting to maintain > a modicum of options further down the road in regards to hardware > lifecycles, operating system and kernel lifecycles, and last but not least > security. > > One anecdote regarding insecurity of mysterious binaries / BLOBs: > A local privilege escation has been known to exist, unfixed, for several > years in nvidia's binary drivers: > http://lwn.net/Articles/204541/ > > However, if you can't audit (and subsequently compile) all the code, > including the applications, libraries, compilers and OS, then you've got > nothing secure and nothing that can be made secure - regardless of > anecdotes, no amount of assurances, claims, hand waving, shouting, smoke, > noise etc. from vendors. Don't take my word for it, read what the ACM had > to say about it: > http://www.acm.org/classics/sep95/ > > But it's not just 'security' that is at risk. The lifecycle of both the > operating system/kernel and the hardware that rely on the continued > availability of the BLOBs become dependent on the BLOBs producers. Those > are groups which may or may not continue to have interests and motivations > which overlap yours. If your hardware or system needs a BLOB to run, then > the BLOB-maker has you on a leash. > > Endorsing BLOBs puts *all* hardware, systems, and security at risk through > active effort, which is reprehensible. To have one system accepting them, > makes it all that much harder to keep them off. Think digital scab. > > Tolerating BLOBs or failing to eliminate BLOBs, are simply balless passive > means of putting the above at risk. To put it another way, it's possible > to gain control (political, economical, technical) of systems that get > locked into BLOBs either passively or actively and encroachment into one > system/distro can be used to marginalize the others.
I lurk on this list and occasionally kibbitz. Various effects make OpenBSD a very efficient leading indicator. It works essentially thus. If the hardware gives OpenBSD trouble, it will tend to give everybody else trouble sooner or later. OpenBSD just finds out earlier. > > So to put it as kindly as I can, only people somewhere on the spectrum > between stupid and troll would be advocating acceptance or tolerance of > BLOBs. It's an act of harm that affects more than just the system with > the BLOB. > > -Lars > Lars NoodC)n ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) > Ensure access to your data now and in the future > http://opendocumentfellowship.org/about_us/contribute
