Can we accept a pragmatic world where we have OSS + binary blobs?

That's better than a fully commercial world or a fully "pure" world with no functionality.

OpenWrt accepts binary only firmware running outside of the Linux kernel address space on the wifi chip itself. This matches what upstream Linux also accepts. This works well with most recent Wifi drivers. OpenWrt does not accapt binary only kernel modules or binary only userspace applications, they are very hard to maintain if you do not have the source code.

This works well with Mediatek and also Qualcomm and most other vendors.

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wtallis 3 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

GPU vendors have come to the realization that the in-kernel driver needs to be open-source, but the userspace portion can be closed-source. There's just really no good reason to accept a design where outdated closed-source drivers could keep you from running a current kernel. WiFi NIC vendors have for generations been moving more complexity into the closed-source firmware blob that runs on the NIC's own processor core(s), so there's no good reason for the kernel driver to remain closed-source.

	▲	zokier 3 days ago \| parent [-]
		Broadcom has been doing FullMAC designs for over a decade now, and that is exactly what you describe: moving all the functionality into firmware and having thin opensource kernel driver

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mifydev 3 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

I would love that, but it seems like they are not doing that either

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trelane 3 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

> That's better than a fully commercial world or a fully "pure" world with no functionality.

I would prefer a fully open world with full functionality.

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opan 3 days ago | parent | prev [-]

Give them an inch and they'll take a mile. Things would be even worse if people didn't care about blobs.