Richard Stallman wrote: > Gilles' message seems to say that OpenBSD policy is to allow
> binary-only firmware. Is that correct? Binary "firmware" that's legally redistributable is distributed in OpenBSD, Yes. But you need to wrap your head around what that means for OpenBSD. Modern technologies like Wireless cards are little complex computers, some time ago, vendors decided it would be easier to ship the "firmware" inside of the "Proprietary" Windows driver and "upload" it onto the card at initialization time. (Instead of storing it permanently on internal flash/ROM memory.) These firmwares are just the same as "Microcode" in modern processors, It's "NOT" tainting the kernel at all... unlike "binary blob" drivers that are very common in the Linux/(And even the FreeBSD) communities. The contents of the firmware is nobody's business... every firmware in /etc/firmware has a companion text licence beside it, the average size of these "firmware" binaries is like less then ~50 Kilobytes. Seriously Richard, You need to educate yourself more... you're completely disconnected from modern technologies, and you're preaching obsolete nonsense. -Nix Fan.
