Blob was popular at school he was helpful too
He could get your motor runnin'
with a drop of goo
He was givin' it away never charged a dime
But by the time he graduated
Blob was business slime!
He was a blah blah blah blah blah blah
blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah
blah blah
Blobs are vendor-compiled binary drivers without any source code. Hardware makers like them because they obscure the details of how to make their hardware work. They hide bugs and workarounds for bugs. Newer versions of blobs can weaken support for older hardware and motivate people to buy new hardware.
Blobs are expedient. Many other open source operating systems cheerfully incorporate them; in fact their users demand them.
But when you need to trust the system, how do you check the blob for quality? For adherence to standards? How do you know the blob contains no malicious code? No incompetent code? Inspection is impossible; you can only test the black box. And when it breaks, you have no idea why.
* Blobs can be 'de-supported' by vendors
at any time.
* Blobs cannot be supported by developers.
* Blobs cannot be fixed by developers.
* Blobs cannot be improved.
* Blobs cannot be audited.
* Blobs are specific to an architecture, thus
less portable.
Je treba rozlisovat mezi BLOB-em pro driver (nvidia, vsechny fake-raidy a nektere raidy) ktery bezi na hlavnim CPU v urovni jadra a BLOB-em jakozto firmware pro hardware (gsm, wifi, raid fw - ne driver!) ktery je nahran do dane karty a bezi na jejim hw a vsechny body ktere popisujete vyse se na tuto situaci nevztahuji. Jde tady jen o usetreni vyrobnich nakladu, protoze fw neni v eeprom na karte ale nahrava se do ni az pri inicializaci ovladacem.
Vyvojari Debianu nejspis odsouhlasili pouziti jen toho druheho pripadu, ale pokud ma nekdo presnejsi informace, at me prosim doplni.
Isteze vsade mozu byt chyby ale je lepsie ked je aspon moznost ze to vyrobca fixne. Na co mi je karta ktora ma napevno firmware a blbne. Ten firmware je tam tak ci tak. Ci na disku alebo v karte. Vyrobcovia nemaju zaujem obmedzovat pouzivanie ich produktov. Naozaj je to iba o setreni nakladov a jednoduchosti opravy.
Zda sa ze nie vsetci v Debiane prisli o rozum a ja tomuto rozhodnotiu tlieskam a tesim sa. Bude jeden adresar kde budu vsetky firmware bloby a ja nemusim na to aby som rozbehal nejaky HW googlit a hladat a nebodaj kompilovat ako v Linux praveku. Nainstalujem balicek a karta chodi. Krasa.
Nikdy som nerozumel ako tieto binarne firmware bloby ovplyvnuju slobodu distribucie. Ci to mam na HD alebo v karte je predsa dost jedno je to v pocitaci tak ci tak.
no, nie je to jedno ani nahodou ;) ak sa jedna o firmware ktory bezi na procesore karty tak ma vyrazne menej moznosti ovplyvnit beh jadra na CPU masiny a sposobit problemy ako ked dostaneme taku ciernu skrinku kodu priamo do behu jadra co je najcitlivejsie alebo hoci ako user-space driver co je rizikom niekde medzi.. sloboda je potom dalsia stranka a o tej tu uz je dost prispevkov, jednoznacne je ale uzavretie kodu driverov vyhodne len pre vyrobcu hw, pre uzivatelov to znamena len dalsie rizika a pre vyvojarov dlhodobu nemoznost riesit veci na lepsej urovni