Non-commercial redistributable game data

[Ralf Corsepius]

On 05/19/2010 06:52 AM, Kevin Kofler wrote:
> Ralf Corsepius wrote:
>> I have to vehemently disagree. What RH has done with the firmware is
>> having betrayed the OSS community, by claiming "Firmware is not SW".
>> Though it has improved the uneducated user's "experience" this was a
>> slap into the face of OSS-developers.
>
> Unfortunately, you'll be surprised by how much stuff actually requires
> proprietary firmware to work. :-(
I am not surprized :)

 > For example, ALL OpenGL drivers, at least
> for contemporary hardware, require proprietary firmware to work at all.

This issue actually isn't new at all ("Linux veterans" may recall the 
Adaptec case). It applies to almost all "smart/flexible" add-on/external 
devices.

> Another important thing: most hardware which "does not require" firmware
> just has this firmware burned into a ROM.
Exactly - I recall times, people were burning BIOSes to ROMS to upgrade 
them ;)

> Unfortunately, there are very few devices with genuinely Free firmware (and
> no, some binary-only hex array claiming to be GPL isn't Free,
Depends - Certainly commented "asm" is better readable  but in some 
cases "hex arrays" (machine code) are not unlikely to be the real 
"source" of firmware.

I've written and maintained such code for embedded systems myself ;)

> We have a long way to go… :-(
Yes, ... and Fedora's double-standards are not helping change the 
situation :(

Ralf