> But what about the different case where the company permits > redistribution of the binary firmware, but does not release source > code. Would OpenBSD distribute the firmware in that case?
Of course and going by your description it is nothing but hardware at that point No, that description refers to a different case. so there is no ethics violation (whatever that means since you refuse to explain it). It is just like micro code and a circuit. I think firmware is equivalent to a circuit if it is inside the hardware and users don't install software there. Here we are talking about firmware which users always do install. (That is the reason why anyone would consider distributing it with an operating system.) So that is not equivalent to a circuit.