Bugzilla – Bug 1594
firmware is non-free and binary-only
Last modified: 2008-04-17 00:45:04
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I was disappointed to learn that the wireless chip in my laptop requires binary-only firmware that is non-free. It uses the iwl3945 driver in linux 2.6.24 and the non-free binary-only firmware blob. This is a slight improvement to what I found out was the situation before 2.6.24, but just isn't good enough. Please release the source code for the firmware under a free licence. I would suggest the GNU GPL or BSD licences. Please also release the compiler that you use to create the binary firmware from the source code you have written. For compliance with legal stuff you might consider something like OpenHAL, described in this LWN article and this wiki page: http://lwn.net/Articles/250718/ http://madwifi.org/wiki/About/OpenHAL This kind of thing also allows users to switch jurisdictions and ensure they remain in compliance with local laws. Alternatively, please release documentation for the chips the firmware runs on so that the binary-only firmware can be reimplemented from scratch. Clean-room documentation of the firmware would also be useful if any reimplementation were to take place. Please take a leaf from the book of intel graphics cards and produce hardware that can be used with completely free software. I'd like to leave you with the OpenBSD song "Blob!": ftp://ftp.openbsd.org/pub/OpenBSD/songs/song39.ogg Lyrics here: http://www.openbsd.org/lyrics.html#39
from FAQ that is posted on the project website: Q. Why don't you allow modification and re-engineering of the binaries? A. To operate a radio device, the hardware/firmware combination needs to be FCC (and equivalent in other countries) certified; this excludes end user modification which would void the certification. FYI update: the firmware exposes an interface to the host that is documented in the iwlwifi BSD/GPL header files and by the open source implementation of the driver".
Is the firmware certified for all countries, or would it be illegal for me to use the wireless in say Argentina when I bought it in Australia? What if I have a ham radio licence and want to make the wireless chip do software radio stuff? I guess this is the last time I buy Intel based hardware.