Debian Chooses A Reasonable, Common Sense Solution To Dealing With Non-Free Firmware

[wertigon]

I just said that I don't see how would an open firmware benefit me as an end user.

You mean, besides the obvious like cheaper products, more competition, better quality on average, et cetera?

Sure, if you cannot read then this is the question of whether or not your priest reads the bible in Latin or plain English. For you, it doesn't matter - the priest will hold his sermon in English and preach in English with bible quotes in either case.

But take a look at what the Gutenberg Bible and Protestantism did for Christianity, and you might start to reconsider whether or not bibles in English matter.

Open Source allows anyone to join in. Proprietary software does not. This is an extremely powerful difference that should not be disregarded lightly. While I agree there is a place for proprietary software in the current world... There are also plenty of places where it does more harm than good. Every proprietary software should be weighted on a silver scale by each and every user, whether the benefits outweighs the disadvantages. Just like every violation of privacy should be weighted.

That most users do not care about either concept is, frankly, a sad testament to the world we live in.

[user1]

You mean, besides the obvious like cheaper products, more competition, better quality on average, et cetera?

I thought I already mentioned that I'm not a developer, so to me, this is not obvious. But if these are the benefits that affect consumers or end users as a result of open firmware, then thank you for finally giving a decent answer.

Open Source allows anyone to join in. Proprietary software does not. This is an extremely powerful difference that should not be disregarded lightly. While I agree there is a place for proprietary software in the current world... There are also plenty of places where it does more harm than good. Every proprietary software should be weighted on a silver scale by each and every user, whether the benefits outweighs the disadvantages. Just like every violation of privacy should be weighted.

That most users do not care about either concept is, frankly, a sad testament to the world we live in.

Not sure why you have to explain this to me. (We're talking about firmware, which is not really in the same category as regular software). I'm perfectly aware of the advantages of open source software and I use it as much as I can. I only use proprietary software that I highly trust and if there are no alternatives (like Steam).

[Gps4life]

We were talking about the removal of patented video codecs in Fedora and openSUSE. You won't get them back with Packman.
https://www.reddit.com/r/openSUSE/co...deo_codecs_as/

Now I get it , and I am not happy. (I am on openSUSE tumbleweed).

AMD vid card. They disable the hardware acceleration.

[ssokolow]

I thought I already mentioned that I'm not a developer, so to me, this is not obvious. But if these are the benefits that affect consumers or end users as a result of open firmware, then thank you for finally giving a decent answer.

Not sure why you have to explain this to me. (We're talking about firmware, which is not really in the same category as regular software). I'm perfectly aware of the advantages of open source software and I use it as much as I can. I only use proprietary software that I highly trust and if there are no alternatives (like Steam).

Simply put, it extends and protects the concept of an aftermarket for third-party solutions.

[mulenmar]

The rantings of a true ideologue. "My way or the highway." That's why FSF is irrelevant to most people. The real world most people have at least some passing connection doesn't work that way. It never has and never will. That's what RMS and other ideologues don't get and likely never will.

Firmware is always going to be necessary. Firmware is just software stored in a more permanent way used to initialize the hardware and bring it to a functional condition. You've probably never even come close to studying how the hardware functions you're using to post your drivel. Firmware will have bugs. Hardware will have bugs. Software will have bugs. It doesn't matter how long you test it, you can't test every single possible option in complex systems before release.

Resources and time are limited. Someone is going to find something a production team will have missed. This is why firmware is easily upgradable these days even if it's on a rewritable EPROM on the device. Planned obsolescence is an artificial problem separate from software maintenance though closely related in the form of withholding bug fixes for new purchases of hardware. It could be solved by a subscription program - pay us a living wage and we'll continue to offer the bug fixes. People have to eat, even FOSS developers. But I'm going to assume you want everything given to you as a freeloader from the tone of your rant.

Next, as soon as you start issuing ultimatums from a position of weakness (and trust me, in this case with all the alternatives out there: FreeBSD, NetBSD, forking the kernel, etc. you're in about as weak a position as it gets, not to mention it'd legally require all past non-trivial contributers to explicitly sign off in writing on such a change) you'll have everyone telling you to shove off in varying ways from polite sarcasm to telling you where to shove it. I'd be one of them on the shove it side. In fact, the Linux kernel would be about as popular as the FSF's version of it that removes the very things your talking about. There may be a handful of people in this world of 7+ billion people that use it. Screaming popularity there.

Wow, looks like you've spotted all the problems! What a smart person!

How about you put that effort into fixing them, instead of hassling anyone who points out problems? All your approach does is help the money-grubbers get away with their consumer-hostility.

In other words: take your "shove it" and shove it.

[Waethorn]

We were talking about the removal of patented video codecs in Fedora and openSUSE. You won't get them back with Packman.
https://www.reddit.com/r/openSUSE/co...deo_codecs_as/

openSUSE does what Fedora does. Fedora also has a strict open source mantra. People don't believe it because a corporation funds it, but it's a fact. This is why you have RPM Fusion and why closed-source Flatpaks only exist on Flathub and not in the Fedora Flatpak repo.

[hwertz]

I think I heard about these benefits, but is this such a common scenario when this stuff is urgently needed very often? I haven't heard about any specific case, like with specific old piece of hardware where this was beneficial. An example would be appreciated.

i've had several Intel wifi chips where the final firmware was flakey, but that was it, the device was EOL so no new firmware.

[Waethorn]

i've had several Intel wifi chips where the final firmware was flakey, but that was it, the device was EOL so no new firmware.

Allowing closed-source firmware is a stopgap for hardware vendors that don't like the idea of giving away their intellectual property to write fully open-source hardware interfaces. IMO, firmware should remain where it belongs: on a chip, not in software.

Here's a question: why does nobody complain about MIDI in the same way? MIDI abstracts a music synthesizer's hardware through a set of common instructions. Only the control of hardware that is exposed via MIDI commands (notes, pitch bend, controller messages, etc.) and System Exclusive (SysEx) messages, as determined by the manufacturer are accessible. Everything else is hidden behind the shroud, hardcoded onto a few chips. You are bound to the limitations of the synthesizer by way of MIDI.

[oiaohm]

Allowing closed-source firmware is a stopgap for hardware vendors that don't like the idea of giving away their intellectual property to write fully open-source hardware interfaces. IMO, firmware should remain where it belongs: on a chip, not in software..

This kind of states the core problem. Firmware for a lot of devices cannot remain in the chip. Issues of security issue with firmware do come up so it has to be replaced. Using flash on devices people put up as solution one problem flash does in fact have limited write cycles. Flashless devices have longer lifespan and being flashless is way less likely to be quirky.

Ram and ROM both can be made very reliability at low cost even after all these years we still cannot make flash at really low cost so a non updateable firmware solution on card is cheaper. ROM loader with ram based storage of firmware on card where the firmware has to be uploaded to make the device usable is cheaper.

Next if you have to replace the firmware in the field in a device a rom loader and ram base firmware storage card does has almost a zero risk of being bricked by a signed firmware upload. Yes vendors changing to signed firmware makes sense when you see return to manufactures.

Open source firmware does not straight up mean users can replace the firmware because the firmware binary still can be signed by vendor key so preventing user replacement.

The reality here is in a lot of cases it choice between OS loading firmware into device so you get firmware updates fixing hardware stability and security issues vs firmware written into rom on device and it never getting any updates ever and if the hardware has a defect having to replace the complete hardware. Replacing hardware due to minor issues is not good for waste.

Here's a question: why does nobody complain about MIDI in the same way? MIDI abstracts a music synthesizer's hardware through a set of common instructions. Only the control of hardware that is exposed via MIDI commands (notes, pitch bend, controller messages, etc.) and System Exclusive (SysEx) messages, as determined by the manufacturer are accessible. Everything else is hidden behind the shroud, hardcoded onto a few chips. You are bound to the limitations of the synthesizer by way of MIDI.

This has a few mistakes. People have complained about MIDI music synthesizer this is why items like the preenfm that are fully open source and open hardware MIDI music synthesizers exist. The reason people don't complain as much about MIDI is that its a open standard and they have been able to make their own open source/open hardware alternatives.

Next big difference MIDI is a standard. Lets take Nvidia nightmare firmware for example. Nvidia firmware for there most recent cards turns out to expose interface yes but big problem its not standard so firmware is version locked OS driver version that understands the interface the firmware. Most recent is 20 series or newer. Nvidia is not the only one that does this Intel recently changed the interface firmware provided and attempted to change Linux kernel driver to only accepting the new one and failing with the old one and got told no way so now the Linux kernel driver will support both interfaces the intel hardware can provide.

Lack of standards to interface with devices is part of the problem here.

Yes problem here is making stable device interfaces also has problems with those that don't want to give away their intellectual property as well.

Next thing MIDI standard restricts the devices access. Firmware in a GPU, Network card, Harddrive.... all these directly connected devices can mess with your total OS security. Open source firmware does open up third party auditing of the firmware for security faults. Standard to interface with devices has advantages here particularly when it allows operating systems to limit the trouble devices can cause.

Not wanting to give away intellectual property turns out to being counter to having work audited in many cases.

This is not a simple problem as it first appears.

[Waethorn]

This kind of states the core problem. Firmware for a lot of devices cannot remain in the chip. Issues of security issue with firmware do come up so it has to be replaced. Using flash on devices people put up as solution one problem flash does in fact have limited write cycles. Flashless devices have longer lifespan and being flashless is way less likely to be quirky.

Ram and ROM both can be made very reliability at low cost even after all these years we still cannot make flash at really low cost so a non updateable firmware solution on card is cheaper. ROM loader with ram based storage of firmware on card where the firmware has to be uploaded to make the device usable is cheaper.

Next if you have to replace the firmware in the field in a device a rom loader and ram base firmware storage card does has almost a zero risk of being bricked by a signed firmware upload. Yes vendors changing to signed firmware makes sense when you see return to manufactures.

Open source firmware does not straight up mean users can replace the firmware because the firmware binary still can be signed by vendor key so preventing user replacement.

The reality here is in a lot of cases it choice between OS loading firmware into device so you get firmware updates fixing hardware stability and security issues vs firmware written into rom on device and it never getting any updates ever and if the hardware has a defect having to replace the complete hardware. Replacing hardware due to minor issues is not good for waste.



This has a few mistakes. People have complained about MIDI music synthesizer this is why items like the preenfm that are fully open source and open hardware MIDI music synthesizers exist. The reason people don't complain as much about MIDI is that its a open standard and they have been able to make their own open source/open hardware alternatives.

Next big difference MIDI is a standard. Lets take Nvidia nightmare firmware for example. Nvidia firmware for there most recent cards turns out to expose interface yes but big problem its not standard so firmware is version locked OS driver version that understands the interface the firmware. Most recent is 20 series or newer. Nvidia is not the only one that does this Intel recently changed the interface firmware provided and attempted to change Linux kernel driver to only accepting the new one and failing with the old one and got told no way so now the Linux kernel driver will support both interfaces the intel hardware can provide.

Lack of standards to interface with devices is part of the problem here.

Yes problem here is making stable device interfaces also has problems with those that don't want to give away their intellectual property as well.

Next thing MIDI standard restricts the devices access. Firmware in a GPU, Network card, Harddrive.... all these directly connected devices can mess with your total OS security. Open source firmware does open up third party auditing of the firmware for security faults. Standard to interface with devices has advantages here particularly when it allows operating systems to limit the trouble devices can cause.

Not wanting to give away intellectual property turns out to being counter to having work audited in many cases.

This is not a simple problem as it first appears.

In MIDI, as in other hardware interfaces, if the firmware is abstracted entirely by way of the interface, there is no need for updates. Synthesizers don't need them. All of the samples in conventional synths are locked up in ROM as is the primary synth engine. The driver interface for GPU's should be standardized already: OpenGL, Vulkan, DirectX, etc. Move the hardware-specific driver code to the firmware and you solve the problem. There has never been a security issue with a synthesizer through MIDI commands.