OpenBSD 3.9: Blob-Busters Interviewed
,----[ Quote ]
| Drivers that are binary-only or contain a binary-only portion
| (binary blob) run on the computer, in the computer's memory.
| They typically run at the most privileged security level possible
| due to their requirements to talk to system memory and the like.
| This gives them access to anything on your system, and if they
| screw up it can be a disaster. These drivers are unportable and
| typically limited to a handful of architectures. With drivers
| that have full source available, people can see what the driver
| is doing and make corrections as required, this is something
| that can't be done with drivers that contain binary components.
| People who use binary drivers become dependent on the vendors
| who provide them for fixing bugs and if a vendor decides to
| drop the driver, you're out of luck. Not running the latest
| hardware with the latest approved software? Sorry, too bad.
`----
http://www.onlamp.com/lpt/a/6557
This comes amid this new article:
The battle for wireless network drivers
,----[ Quote ]
| Intel, Marvell, Texas Instruments and Broadcom, though separate and
| competing entities, seem by one consent to prevent non-Microsoft
| operating systems from working properly with some of their most
| widely-used network chips.
`----
http://www.thejemreport.com/mambo/content/view/293
And the following big debate:
Re: GPL only modules [was Re: [GIT PATCH] more Driver core patches for
2.6.19]
,----[ Quote ]
| "Yes, as Linus points out, this is the main point here, my
| apologies. GPL covers distribution, not usage, no matter how much
| the people working on v3 want to change that :)
|
| "Even if we change the kernel this way, it prevents valid and
| legal usages of the kernel. So I am wrong, sorry..."
`----
http://lwn.net/Articles/214150/
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