<div dir="ltr"><div class="Ih2E3d"><br>On Tue, Aug 19, 2008 at 12:18 PM, Don Gould <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:don@bowenvale.co.nz" target="_blank">don@bowenvale.co.nz</a>></span> wrote:<br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;">
Rik,<br>
<br>
What's your thoughts on Ubuntu - FLOSS?<br>
<br>
I took to understand that Ubuntu was free but following Richards<br>
presentation it seems it's not.</blockquote></div><br><br>Any
small amount of research would reveal that the kernel has binary blobs
(firmware) and therefore doesn't match rms' definition of Free as in
Libre. Nor in fact does any distro unless it patches the kernel to
delete such stuff.<br>
<br>I still think its ironic that if the firmware were built in to the
device (hardwired or burned into PROM or otherwise not user
upgradeable) it wouldn't be an issue for rms, but the fact it is
uploaded from the computer into the peripheral device does make it an
issue. It seems to me that taking rms' arguments to their logical
conclusion then our hardware and firmware has to be Libre too,
otherwise we get stuck with "Trusted Computing".<br>
<br>I appreciate the need to draw a line, and (if I understand him
correctly) rms has drawn it somewhere between uploadable firmware and
fixed firmware. But to my mind his line is practical but not
necessarily logical.<br>
<br>There are moves towards libre hardware solutions:<br><br>1. I am aware of the attempted development of an open video card.<br><br>2. Beagleboard is an interesting project: <a href="http://www.linuxjournal.com/content/beagleboard-149-linux-system" target="_blank">http://www.linuxjournal.com/content/beagleboard-149-linux-system</a><br>
<br>See here for a fuller list:<br><br><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_source_hardware" target="_blank">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_source_hardware</a><br><br></div>