Re: Non-commercial redistributable game data

Ralf Corsepius wrote: Unfortunately, you'll be surprised by how much stuff actually requires proprietary firmware to work. :-( For example, ALL OpenGL drivers, at least for contemporary hardware, require proprietary firmware to work at all. That Free driver you're using, be it intel, radeon or nouveau, well, it includes a proprietary firmware blob. Needless to say, the proprietary drivers also include firmware, but there you don't notice it because the whole thing is proprietary. No proprietary firmware == no 3D. :-( Another important thing: most hardware which "does not require" firmware just has this firmware burned into a ROM. This means not only it is proprietary, but you don't even have any hope of ever replacing it with Free Software. Yet, the FSF is recommending many such devices as "not requiring" firmware, which is entirely counterproductive. :-( Unfortunately, there are very few devices with genuinely Free firmware (and no, some binary-only hex array claiming to be GPL isn't Free, it isn't even legal to distribute under that form in the first place) or genuinely not requiring firmware because it's all done on the host CPU (some wireless chipsets from Atheros are allegedly in that category, I have no way to verify whether that's true); a lot of the devices recommended by the FSF just hide the non-Free firmware somewhere (usually in a ROM). :-( We have a long way to go… :-( Kevin Kofler