Great stuff, this is why I'll by a neo and tell everyone I know the same. Free the phone!
On 2/7/08, Wolfgang Spraul <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Dear Community, > > Some of our chips or chipsets contain proprietary firmware in flash > memory. For example, in GTA02 these include the Wi-Fi, GPS, and GSM > chipsets. > Ideally, we would have liked to use chipsets for which even the > firmware code would be free, but they don't exist right now. > So we accepted proprietary firmware, as long as it was in flash or ROM. > > Then we ran into problems when bugs were found in the firmware, and we > wanted to update handsets out in the field. > The vendors would give us firmware updates and reflashing tools, but > they wouldn't let us redistribute those tools to our users. We asked > for special licenses to allow us to distribute those flashing tools to > our users, and got them in some cases, after months of licensing > negotiations. > Next we discovered that those reflashing tools had further issues: for > example, they would only allow loading cryptographically signed > firmware into the chipset flash memory. The tools do this because > vendors are worried that people would disassemble, patch, and > reassemble the firmware, triggering regulatory reclassification of > their chipsets (software controlled radio). > Furthermore, we see that for upcoming chipsets, vendors are switching > from storing the firmware in flash memory to loading the firmware into > RAM at run time. One reason for this is that RAM needs less power and > is cheaper. In this case the firmware, whether original or updated, > has to be loaded each time the device boots, requiring that the binary- > only, restrictively licensed firmware updater be included in the > OpenMoko distribution. > > This got quite frustrating, until we met Richard Stallman last > weekend. And he cleared it up for us rather quickly :-) > > He suggested we treat any chipset with proprietary firmware as a black- > box, a circuit. He suggested we ignore the firmware inside. If the > firmware is buggy and the vendor needs the ability to update the > firmware, we instead ask the vendor to reduce the firmware to the bare > minimum, so that it can be very simple and bug free, and move the rest > of the logic into the GPL'ed driver running on the main CPU. This way > we completely avoid the issue of distributing proprietary firmware > updates and binary firmware updaters with restrictive licensing that > load only cryptographically signed firmware. > > We liked his advice. It speeds up our decision making and allows us to > focus on what we do best: Developing Free Software that is available > in full source code, running on the main CPU, that we and anyone else > can modify and optimize. There are downsides: We will no longer offer > reflashing tools to update proprietary firmware, under any license. > For critical firmware bugs, we will accept returns, or in some cases > fix the bug in-house. > We will push vendors to simplify the functionality of their > proprietary firmware, so we can implement more of this on the main CPU > as Free Software. Maybe some vendors will even open up firmware for > Free Software development, that would be the ideal outcome we are > working towards. > > We hope this helps clarify OpenMoko's current position on proprietary > firmware: Ignore them while they stay inside of a chip or chipset, and > refuse to touch them. Focus on what Free Software can do. > Feedback and comments are always very welcome. > Best Regards, > Wolfgang > > _______________________________________________ > OpenMoko community mailing list > community@lists.openmoko.org > http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community > -- Steven Kurylo _______________________________________________ OpenMoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community