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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 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 current article says that blobs are accepted into the Linux kernel "as a fast route to the missing or enhanced functionality these blobs provide". And i wonder - how can it be legal? Who allowed this "fast route"? This must have been discussed somewhere, maybe at the LKML.
According to the GPL, code licensed under GPL can only be merged and/or linked with code that is licensed under GPL or a compatible license. So how can a binary blob be legally distributed, if it is not "Accompan[ied] with the complete corresponding machine-readable source code", where "source code" is defined as "the preferred form of the work for making modificatto it"?
I am not a kernel driver developer, but clearly, an undocumented binary blob is not "the preferred form of the work for making modifications to it".
I've been wondering about this ever since i first read the first announcement of gNewSense. -- Amir E. Aharoni 07:28, 15 July 2007 (UTC)
Does the part on vista driver crashes belong here? 72.166.40.13 ( talk) 00:11, 4 July 2008 (UTC)
Is this the same blob as in Binary large object? (in which case "binary blob" would be a pleonasm). Apokrif 17:03, 9 September 2007 (UTC)
Does this mandate an update to this article? Specs on X.org Slashdot article -- Kl4m Talk Contrib 02:17, 13 September 2007 (UTC)
I updated the article to remove ATi's name as they have in fact made a significant amount of information on their cards' hardware public. Pgk1 ( talk) 03:44, 18 February 2008 (UTC)
Is it accurate to say that this is a free software community issue? Is the term used outside of the free software community, and is this problem an issue (is it considered a problem and are people working on it) outside of the free software community? -- Gronky 22:35, 17 October 2007 (UTC)
I think the problem section should also talk about potential license violation. As others stated as well, I don't feel myself to know enought about the matter to publish. I just feel, the 'Problems' section should talk not only about technical, but also about ethical problems. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 78.227.100.250 ( talk) 12:23, 31 March 2011 (UTC)
Take a look from afar, imagining for a moment you aren't a fanatical linux user but a computer scientist. This topic discusses a pejorative term. According to it windows drivers are all 'blobs'. It's quite easy to extrapolate to that. This information should be included in a Linux drivers article. -- AaThinker ( talk) 23:40, 19 May 2009 (UTC)
No it is not a joke. The choice of having a computing device with software you are legaly able to inspect. An extreme figure like Mr Stallman drawing peoples attention to the real (? we can only guess) price for convenience. Your anger as an "enthusiastic FOSSie" may come from an inner tension of knowing you are using software that you are not allowed investigate for your self? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 1.125.48.142 ( talk) 03:26, 13 January 2015 (UTC)
The article is confusing - first it says that OpenBSD has a "policy of not accepting any binary blobs into its source tree" (emphasis mine) and the reference is a song (??), and then later it says "OpenBSD project accepts binary firmware images and will redistribute the images if the licence permits". Binary firmware images includes in the driver are binary blobs, so which part is correct? -- Joy [shallot] ( talk) 20:23, 25 March 2010 (UTC)
Shouldn't it be mentioned in the problems section, that due to Linux' unstable driver ABI a binary blob might not work with later kernel versions? -- Berntie ( talk) 00:02, 16 June 2012 (UTC)
Why don't the companies release their code AS open source?
Trying to avoid that competitors also use it? Afraid of patent issues if others can See (better) how your product is working? Just don't think/care about it? 46.115.92.23 ( talk) 18:45, 8 March 2014 (UTC)
What does "Binary BLOB" mean? "Binary binary large object"? Did the Department of Redundancy Department coin this term? 129.69.215.1 ( talk) 14:02, 2 May 2014 (UTC)
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This is the
talk page for discussing improvements to the
Binary blob article. This is not a forum for general discussion of the article's subject. |
Article policies
|
Find sources: Google ( books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL |
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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 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 current article says that blobs are accepted into the Linux kernel "as a fast route to the missing or enhanced functionality these blobs provide". And i wonder - how can it be legal? Who allowed this "fast route"? This must have been discussed somewhere, maybe at the LKML.
According to the GPL, code licensed under GPL can only be merged and/or linked with code that is licensed under GPL or a compatible license. So how can a binary blob be legally distributed, if it is not "Accompan[ied] with the complete corresponding machine-readable source code", where "source code" is defined as "the preferred form of the work for making modificatto it"?
I am not a kernel driver developer, but clearly, an undocumented binary blob is not "the preferred form of the work for making modifications to it".
I've been wondering about this ever since i first read the first announcement of gNewSense. -- Amir E. Aharoni 07:28, 15 July 2007 (UTC)
Does the part on vista driver crashes belong here? 72.166.40.13 ( talk) 00:11, 4 July 2008 (UTC)
Is this the same blob as in Binary large object? (in which case "binary blob" would be a pleonasm). Apokrif 17:03, 9 September 2007 (UTC)
Does this mandate an update to this article? Specs on X.org Slashdot article -- Kl4m Talk Contrib 02:17, 13 September 2007 (UTC)
I updated the article to remove ATi's name as they have in fact made a significant amount of information on their cards' hardware public. Pgk1 ( talk) 03:44, 18 February 2008 (UTC)
Is it accurate to say that this is a free software community issue? Is the term used outside of the free software community, and is this problem an issue (is it considered a problem and are people working on it) outside of the free software community? -- Gronky 22:35, 17 October 2007 (UTC)
I think the problem section should also talk about potential license violation. As others stated as well, I don't feel myself to know enought about the matter to publish. I just feel, the 'Problems' section should talk not only about technical, but also about ethical problems. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 78.227.100.250 ( talk) 12:23, 31 March 2011 (UTC)
Take a look from afar, imagining for a moment you aren't a fanatical linux user but a computer scientist. This topic discusses a pejorative term. According to it windows drivers are all 'blobs'. It's quite easy to extrapolate to that. This information should be included in a Linux drivers article. -- AaThinker ( talk) 23:40, 19 May 2009 (UTC)
No it is not a joke. The choice of having a computing device with software you are legaly able to inspect. An extreme figure like Mr Stallman drawing peoples attention to the real (? we can only guess) price for convenience. Your anger as an "enthusiastic FOSSie" may come from an inner tension of knowing you are using software that you are not allowed investigate for your self? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 1.125.48.142 ( talk) 03:26, 13 January 2015 (UTC)
The article is confusing - first it says that OpenBSD has a "policy of not accepting any binary blobs into its source tree" (emphasis mine) and the reference is a song (??), and then later it says "OpenBSD project accepts binary firmware images and will redistribute the images if the licence permits". Binary firmware images includes in the driver are binary blobs, so which part is correct? -- Joy [shallot] ( talk) 20:23, 25 March 2010 (UTC)
Shouldn't it be mentioned in the problems section, that due to Linux' unstable driver ABI a binary blob might not work with later kernel versions? -- Berntie ( talk) 00:02, 16 June 2012 (UTC)
Why don't the companies release their code AS open source?
Trying to avoid that competitors also use it? Afraid of patent issues if others can See (better) how your product is working? Just don't think/care about it? 46.115.92.23 ( talk) 18:45, 8 March 2014 (UTC)
What does "Binary BLOB" mean? "Binary binary large object"? Did the Department of Redundancy Department coin this term? 129.69.215.1 ( talk) 14:02, 2 May 2014 (UTC)
Hello fellow Wikipedians,
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