Originally posted by coder
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Any hardware may have any amount of code hidden in any ROMs and nobody would know it. This is not good. Open hardware is better than closed hardware.
But this not something linux-libre can avoid in any way.
Hardware means the part of the design that is hard to change.
Software means the part that is easier to change.
If you put functionality in software because you don't feel able to get it right at first try and want to change it later, then it is software and I want it free. The software author and the software user should have the same power, even if the software is firmware because it runs on a different processor.
if it can't be changed (because it's in a ROM, in wiring or in patterns of semiconductor doping) then it's hardware. I still want as much documentation on it as I can get, but I won't be able to check the documentation is true, the vendor could give me the documentation of design A and hardware of design B, so the criteria is more do I trust the vendor ? has it a history of deception, etc?
The fact that the same byte sequence can be hardware if it's in a ROM or software if it's in a file may cause confusion at first, but if you think about it, it makes sense.
A dollar bill can be legal or not depending on accounting and money laundering, even if it's the same piece of paper. Someone earns it legally and it's legal. Then it gives it to a dealer for some drugs and it is no longer legal.
Windows could also be stored in read only non removable media, and then it would be hardware, but without MS updates, the hardware vendor would get too many recalls and wouldn't be compatible with new hardware peripherals, so it would be very hard to sell that hardware.
The solution is not to put firmware in ROM. It's to make it free software. Then it would be both fixable and compatible with linux-libre.
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