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On Mon, 26 Mar 2007 00:26:40 +0100 Tom Brough <tombrough@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote: > 1. This debate is getting unhealthy. At times, yes, but we can't stop having 'technical', 'in-depth', 'political' or 'legalese' discussions here just for the sake of newbies. Everyone is welcome here, it's not just a place to recommend to those wanting to install for the first time, it is also a place for discussions about why some areas of free software have such complex problems - like WiFi. (changing the subject line to reflect this.) > 2. I don't know about your own PC configurations you may well be all > running open firmwire but for myself and I suspect most of you will > be running the BIOS supplied by the manufacturer of your motherboard. There is work on openBIOS and don't forget that not all computers have BIOS. Most desktops probably do but embedded devices do not. > 3. This "proprietary firmware" issue is a sham, partly because of > what I said above, but also because there are important rules that > specifically apply to WiFi cards, you just can't have people > trampling all over radio frequencies and there harmonics, Sorry, Tom, that's bunk. Those who propagate these myths simply don't trust open source / free software developers to have any kind of common sense. Sure, it's possible to cause no end of harm by reprogramming the firmware to send TCP/IP over police radio channels. That doesn't mean that free software drivers would support such actions!!! Just because you can set your modem to dial 999 doesn't mean you try to set that as the contact number for an ISP! We are responsible people, you cannot brow-beat everyone just because some idiot might try to use a mains radio in the bath. If your argument was to hold up, there would be 20m fences around every cliff edge in the world. You cannot protect people from themselves - neither should people be denied the opportunity to improve things because of some misplaced distrust of their motivation and 'tinhat' mentality myths about global conspiracies to create a new world order! Free software is not 'spectre', it's not communism - we are not the enemy. Just because something is dangerous to do does not mean that people would actually deliberately do it just to annoy others. Even if some do, it is NOT an excuse to prohibit the majority from having the opportunity to do something useful with the same method. Binary firmware IS a problem in terms of support and memory bugs / stability issues as well as suspend-to-RAM problems and hibernation issues. There are real, technical, problems out there, real bugs, that can only be solved if experienced kernel hackers get a chance to modify the source code that generates the firmware for these devices. (I can't use a particular piece of - very useful - free software because it cannot work out how to interface with my binary WiFi firmware - it REALLY ANNOYS ME!) These binary blobs are not tested on our beloved OS - why should we trust proprietary providers to get it right when they don't trust us? Besides, the whole point of WiFi is that both ends have to use the same channels (frequencies). The common scenario will be that free software WiFi firmware would have to operate on the same channels as all the typical AccessPoint providers. Sure, we could create a complete wifi sub-culture that uses non-standard frequencies but, PLEASE, put the tinhat away and think logically. Free software is all about open standards - free software ALWAYS sticks to the standard, it has traditionally been the proprietary houses who have deliberately omitted parts of standards or created their own 'standard' just to suit their own needs (think J+, IE+HTML, ...). > way can be found to ensure that free firmware can meet the same > requirement all is well and good. By perpetuating the myth that free software developers cannot be trusted to be sensible, you make it less likely that free firmware can be developed and used. > 5. We should all be comfortable with our own levels / mixes and usage > of free / proprietary software. If we are unhappy with our OWN mixes > then we should adjust them as necessary. Its nice to strive for that > 100% of freedom, but its our own individual choice at the end of the > day. By all means, try to persuade others to follow a more > empowering path to freedom, but please dont use harasment, bullying > or ethical zealotry to enforce your own particular brand of freedom, > utimately it will fail unless people are really ready to change. The > only person who is going to change me is ME, the only peson who is > going to change you is YOU. Now that's true and there have been messages in this thread that would qualify as bullying or harrassment - depending on your viewpoint. We can do without those kind of messages. -- Neil Williams ============= http://www.data-freedom.org/ http://www.nosoftwarepatents.com/ http://www.linux.codehelp.co.uk/
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