Jose Carlos Garcia Sogo <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: > El dom, 12-12-2004 a las 00:22 +0100, Goswin von Brederlow escribió: > [...] >> >> Installing non-free firmware taints your filesystem, using AIM does >> not. > > Taints your filesytem??? Oh, this is more than I expected. > > Are you really aware that your computer is plenty of non-freeness? That > the device in which you store your filesystem is also non-free?
The hardware is non-free. But nothing in main should limit my freedom to make as many copies of the contents as I like, to edit it, to distribute it and changes and so on. > Of course I'd like that hardware manufacturers release their drivers as > free software, but I think that the time for that is not even near. > While, please tell me what is the difference in having such blob in a > magnetic device as a HDD or in a magnetic device like FlashROM in your > device. In both situations the driver loads the blob or initialize it. > And won't work if it is not present. Well, it will work. It will tell > you that the device doesn't work because it lacks the firmware. In the hdd I can't distribute the contents of the hdd anymore, in the flash I still can. Having firmware in flash doesn't change the non-freeness of the firmware but it doesn't restrict the freedom I have for the rest of the system. Does that make it clearer? > Cheers, > -- > Jose Carlos Garcia Sogo > [EMAIL PROTECTED] MfG Goswin