I'm not sure if we're just having a combination glass half full/half
empty and semantics argument. However, I'll explain why I affected
the nonce term 'legally free.'
GNU FSDG rightly excludes both blobs and obfuscated code under free
licenses because they interfere with users' meaningful use of the
freedoms. Which is perfectly true in the case of all users.
However, if it's under the GPL then in the special case of users with
the right skills they can make meaningful use of those freedoms i.e.
turn a blob into proper source, deobfuscate the source. So it seems
to me over the blob you're echoing Solomon Burke's 'none of us is
free until we're all free' whereas I'm saying 'someone is free and
can free us all.' What term we use for this is a matter of
semantics. I just picked something out of the air.
It being GPL also prevents lots of kinds of proprietary license blob
impediments e.g. patents we can't license, supposed trade secrets we
can't publish and ATI/AMD's prohibition of reverse engineering. ATI
graphics drivers are therefore IMO in a worse position than the GPL
blob RaLink drivers - we can't get out of AMD/ATI's trap.
I think of the others you mention as 'open source community stuff,'
which covers things like the garnishing with proprietary code gratis
or not, the habit of copyright holders also selling the code under a
proprietary license, etc. You know, all the ways the users freedoms
and rights are treated as less important than money, number of users,
shiny thing features or whatever. :-)
