ティージェーグレェ on Nostr: I mean, in an ideal world, it would be awesome of firmware were libre/free open ...
I mean, in an ideal world, it would be awesome of firmware were libre/free open source too I suppose?
We don't live in an ideal world.
I am hardly a proponent of the FSF even though I have been using libre/free open source software that is older than its existence.
However, the one time I bothered to get a story published to slashdot, it was right in this realm (for reference: https://slashdot.org/story/51339 )
The long story short is that in OpenBSD's instance, even if developers went through the effort to reverse engineer and re-implement a proprietary closed source WiFi driver, having cooperation and consent from vendors in order to redistribute their firmware binary blobs, is still a necessity for having that WiFi chipset work. This might be particularly important say, during OS install, where you more often than not, might be installing tarballs over a network and that network might be wireless.
Sure, there are workarounds. Windows drivers being installed from floppy disk after OS install come to mind as something many hardware vendors would probably prefer (ignoring the headaches of RAID controller drivers and OS installs which is a completely different nightmare I would rather not remember as it's kind of tangential). You could expect users to install the pertinent firmware themselves in OpenBSD after install too I suppose, but it makes for a crummier experience (particularly in a day and age where increasingly laptops don't even have physical network cards anymore, they might only have WiFi chipsets onboard without plugging in a dongle).
I guess in theory super idealistic libre/free open source folks could advocate for reverse engineering and re-implementing SDR firmware for such WiFi chip sets?
However, OpenBSD's objective then (and presumably now) was just to get permission to redistribute vendor firmware. In many instances, vendors were more than happy to cooperate!
It just isn't a given and not something that OpenBSD could reasonably ship on boot media (remember when OpenBSD still sold physical install CDs? Ah, the stickers and complementary music tracks!) without vendor permission.
I don't think OpenBSD's position was unreasonable, nor untenable.
But then, OpenBSD is also a far cry from the FSF even if their objectives, at least in this instance, may have significant overlap in interests.
We don't live in an ideal world.
I am hardly a proponent of the FSF even though I have been using libre/free open source software that is older than its existence.
However, the one time I bothered to get a story published to slashdot, it was right in this realm (for reference: https://slashdot.org/story/51339 )
The long story short is that in OpenBSD's instance, even if developers went through the effort to reverse engineer and re-implement a proprietary closed source WiFi driver, having cooperation and consent from vendors in order to redistribute their firmware binary blobs, is still a necessity for having that WiFi chipset work. This might be particularly important say, during OS install, where you more often than not, might be installing tarballs over a network and that network might be wireless.
Sure, there are workarounds. Windows drivers being installed from floppy disk after OS install come to mind as something many hardware vendors would probably prefer (ignoring the headaches of RAID controller drivers and OS installs which is a completely different nightmare I would rather not remember as it's kind of tangential). You could expect users to install the pertinent firmware themselves in OpenBSD after install too I suppose, but it makes for a crummier experience (particularly in a day and age where increasingly laptops don't even have physical network cards anymore, they might only have WiFi chipsets onboard without plugging in a dongle).
I guess in theory super idealistic libre/free open source folks could advocate for reverse engineering and re-implementing SDR firmware for such WiFi chip sets?
However, OpenBSD's objective then (and presumably now) was just to get permission to redistribute vendor firmware. In many instances, vendors were more than happy to cooperate!
It just isn't a given and not something that OpenBSD could reasonably ship on boot media (remember when OpenBSD still sold physical install CDs? Ah, the stickers and complementary music tracks!) without vendor permission.
I don't think OpenBSD's position was unreasonable, nor untenable.
But then, OpenBSD is also a far cry from the FSF even if their objectives, at least in this instance, may have significant overlap in interests.