[Solar-general] linux-libre ahora no impide la instalación de firmwares?

Mar Ago 10 14:19:55 CEST 2010

http://www.fsfla.org/svnwiki/anuncio/2010-03-Linux-2.6.33-libre

"Request for comments

A number of our users have expressed legitimate dissatisfaction with a 
consequence of the method we've used to stop the kernel from inducing users 
to install non-Free firmware. It is not our goal to prevent users from 
loading or running non-Free firmware, but the only way we thought of to avoid 
inducing users to run non-Free firmware had the side effect of making it 
impossible to use the non-Free firmware just by installing it.

In Linux, several drivers call request_firmware with a blob name. This request 
is logged, including the blob name, and passed on to a userland program, 
supposed to locate a firmware file with that name and upload it to the 
kernel. Given the logs, in addition to existing and potential behavior of the 
userland program, this amounted to Linux telling its user to install a 
specific non-Free program, which is unacceptable.

Linux-libre releases since generation 2 replace the blob name with a name that 
the firmware loader is unlikely to match, and that could be recognized in 
userland to inform users about the lack of Free firmware for some hardware 
component of the system. We also reject whatever response the firmware loader 
produces for such requests, to minimize the risk of accidental matches and 
hardware damage.

We reasoned that anyone determined to use the firmware could still build a 
module, or a complete kernel, that issues the request and uses the response. 
This possibility was considered too cumbersome by some.

Recently we came up with another way to achieve the goal of stopping the 
kernel from inviting users into the trap of non-Free Software: where Linux 
requests a firmware file that we know is non-Free, we could anonymize the 
blob name with a unidirectional hash of its name and a kernel build and/or 
session identifier, and issue a request for a file named after the computed 
hash.

Given a suitable implementation of the userland firmware loader, whatever 
pieces of firmware the user chose to install would still be readily located 
and made available to the kernel. However, because of the unidirectional 
nature of the hash, a request for firmware that's not installed won't steer 
users toward that firmware, because the hash code won't immediately identify 
it. Thus, if the user insists on installing this firmware, Linux-libre will 
work with it, but it is very unlikely anyone will install the firmware 
because of Linux-libre.

Join us at linux-libre en fsfla.org and let us know your suggestions, other ways 
to address this issue, or your opinion about this plan and whether it might 
be accepted upstream. Feedback and help are welcome!

In the mean time, Be Free! with Linux-2.6.33-libre, and help us reverse the 
growing dependency of Linux on non-Free firmware."

Creo entender que funcionará cualquier firmware con los nuevos kernels 2.6.33, 
aún si fuera privativo. Esto es bueno porque el usuario ya no está prohibido 
de instalar lo que quiera en su sistema operativo y utilizar su hardware, 
además es bueno pq si se desarrollan firmwares libres ya esos kernels podrán 
cargarlos, y es bueno porque puede fomentar el desarrollo de esos reemplazos 
por software libre