Rod Whitworth wrote:
> On Mon, 17 Dec 2007 01:29:43 -0500, David H. Lynch Jr. wrote:
>
>
>> The NVIDIA binary blob is popular.
>>
> There you go again.
>
> You don't know the difference between a blob and an application.
The difference has no meaning in the context of values and principles.
It is like trying to claim that racial discrimination should be
acceptable, in Kenya, but not in the US.
Further if you try to make values distinctions based on technical
differences, you are eventually going to
run afoul of technology itself. FPGA's make hardware into software.
I can write a decryption algorithm,
in a C like language, compile it into bits that create hardware that
performs the task completely without a CPU or
OS. the "firmware" of the FPGA is hardware, OS, and application all
rolled into one.
We have courts cases that hinge on law based on technological
distinctions that have been superseded for decades.
Wise men do not tie their values and principles to arbitrary
technological distinctions.
The reasons a binary blob are bad do not change when it becomes an
application.
a flaw in a binary blob in a rarely executed part of the OS may be
less significant that a flaw in a binary blob in a constantly used
highly popular application. Security and reliability in the kernel
is critical, but security and reliability in an application is not
pointless.
