Talk:Binary blob

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This is still OpenBSD specific, even after I added a sentence about the FSF. Fans of other OSes are invited to expand this article! -- Joachim

I really don't think that is going to happen, noone outside the OpenBSD community really cares, just look at how many major operating systems even mention binaries as a problem? Hell, Scott Long of FreeBSD regularly mocks OpenBSD's efforts and claims their reverse engineered work is illegal, while Mark Shuttleworth of Ubuntu has said he will seek out more in order to give his users the "best" experience. Much like in the OpenBSD release 3.9 song, blob is taking over the world and the people are loving it. Janizary 23:22, 23 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Firmware

I know why there not considered a binary blob, but there is a project called openbios which replaces the bios (which is firmware?) with a open bios. I suppose in reality to exclude firmware completly would mean free open operating systems would take a lot longer to develop and many consider firmware less of a issue than drivers, as there not directly communicating with the operating system but with a driver. My point was a little food for thought..

Allix Fri Oct 13 19:56:00 BST 2006

The difference is that the BIOS runs on the main CPU and is general-purpose, the firmware on specific cards do not and are not. That firmware is really part of the hardware. You want open hardware, it is important; open software, it's API is important but it itself is not. NicM 19:15, 13 October 2006 (UTC).