Debian and firmware
blog.einval.com
Debian and firmware
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Re: Debian and firmware
#2As bad as it is in the short term the only way we'll see long term change is to keep the friction on. It's this friction that forces the change of habit to support manufacturers who open their firmware. If it's seamless then there's no incentive to seek out the open option next time you buy.
In my personal case nVidia stopped supporting my graphics card and eventually their binary blob stopped working with the newer Linux kernels so I had to chuck it away.
Now I've learnt the hard way that I'll never by nVidia again (or if I do I'll make sure it's open first). At the time nVidia was getting a lot of good press supporting Linux and I didn't realise that meant closed source blobs that would eventually stop working.
Re: Debian and firmware
#3As bad as it is in the short term the only way we'll see long term change is to keep the friction on. It's this friction that forces the change of habit to support manufacturers who open their firmware. If it's seamless then there's no incentive to seek out the open option next time you buy. In my personal case nVidia stopped supporting my graphics card and eventually their binary blob stopped working with the newer…
AMD and Intel GPUs also have closed source firmware.
Re: Debian and firmware
#4As bad as it is in the short term the only way we'll see long term change is to keep the friction on. It's this friction that forces the change of habit to support manufacturers who open their firmware. If it's seamless then there's no incentive to seek out the open option next time you buy. In my personal case nVidia stopped supporting my graphics card and eventually their binary blob stopped working with the newer…
> As bad as it is in the short term the only way we'll see long term change is to keep the friction on. It's this friction that forces the change of habit to support manufacturers who open their firmware. If it's seamless then there's no incentive to seek out the open option next time you buy.
My experience is the same as the author's: there's more today that needs non-free support to use Linux on the desktop than there was in the past.
So the friction isn't doing its job.
So why bother if the friction is just pushing users to distros which bundle the blobs more directly, instead of pushing manufacturers at all?
Re: Debian and firmware
#5As bad as it is in the short term the only way we'll see long term change is to keep the friction on. It's this friction that forces the change of habit to support manufacturers who open their firmware. If it's seamless then there's no incentive to seek out the open option next time you buy. In my personal case nVidia stopped supporting my graphics card and eventually their binary blob stopped working with the newer…
> As bad as it is in the short term the only way we'll see long term change is to keep the friction on. It's this friction that forces the change of habit to support manufacturers who open their firmware. If it's seamless then there's no incentive to seek out the open option next time you buy. My experience is the same as the author's: there's more today that needs non-free support to use Linux on the desktop than th…
> My experience is the same as the author's: there's more today that needs non-free support to use Linux on the desktop than there was in the past.
Is that a function of Linux Desktop simply being more capable nowadays?
Also, there is a world of difference between not publishing signed closed-source firmware for a driver that does not exist vs having an open source driver with published firmware.
Re: Debian and firmware
#6Almost every hardware device has one or more CPUs on it. As Foone joked, "USB is a standard to let you connect 8051 microcontrollers to PCs." Given the choice between burned-in firmware and externally-loaded firmware, the latter seems clearly superior from an openness perspective. The firmware binary and the loading mechanism opens up the opportunity for reverse engineering, modification, and replacement open firmware.
We currently have a strange situation where the devices that are easy to use are the most open and the most locked down ones, and the middle-ground is punished by policy. If that policy were successful at promoting open firmware I think that would be acceptable, but I don't think I even need to argue that is not the case.
Re: Debian and firmware
#7As bad as it is in the short term the only way we'll see long term change is to keep the friction on. It's this friction that forces the change of habit to support manufacturers who open their firmware. If it's seamless then there's no incentive to seek out the open option next time you buy. In my personal case nVidia stopped supporting my graphics card and eventually their binary blob stopped working with the newer…
AMD and Intel GPUs also have closed source firmware.
As long as the code running on the Linux side is open and the closed source firmware stays on their chip that's fine by me. At least then you have a fighting chance to change the open source side up to date to allow the card to keep working.
I know it's not pure freedom but I'm picking my battles these days and if I can keep something working by bridging the gap between an evolving kernel and static closed firmware then that's good enough for me.
Re: Debian and firmware
#8As bad as it is in the short term the only way we'll see long term change is to keep the friction on. It's this friction that forces the change of habit to support manufacturers who open their firmware. If it's seamless then there's no incentive to seek out the open option next time you buy. In my personal case nVidia stopped supporting my graphics card and eventually their binary blob stopped working with the newer…
What incentive do manufacturers have to release open firmware? Let's get serious, it's been 20+ years and desktop Linux usage isn't moving the needle or getting any of their attention.
IMHO it would be far better to put effort into change at a different level, like perhaps a broader push with right to repair legislation that expands it to include releasing firmware in addition to schematics, spare parts, etc. Change is going to have to come from a different source, you're just abusing users today for no benefit.
Re: Debian and firmware
#9What to do? Fund the development of, and provide to top tier support for open hardware and open firmware. Computers aren't just software, after all; Debian drawing the line at software probably needs to end.
Re: Debian and firmware
#10My 5c: Debian is a free base distro. For users who want an all-batteries-included image including non-free firmware, there are derivatives like Mint and Ubuntu. If someone wants to step up and maintain [Debian+non-free-firmware] releases, this will probably be greatly appreciated but it should not come at the expense of maintaining the rest of Debian and stretching their already thin resources.
One thing that could start paving a path forward would be to make contributing to Debian more approachable... Not saying they should get on GH/GL or anything, but there's huge room for improvement in their existing tools and docs.