Re: why NetBSD include binary/blob driver or firmware by default?

[Manuel Bouyer <bouyer%antioche.eu.org@localhost>]

On Fri, Jan 23, 2009 at 11:26:31PM +0200, Cem Kayali wrote:
> 
> Hello!
> 
> I have recently encountered with a broadcom ethernet card that NetBSD 
> 4.0/4.1 supports and it works perfectly - while 'gnu/linux' gnewsense 
> and trisquel does not support. These linux distributions are supported 
> by Free Software Foundation and they have blob-free kernel and softwares 
> - which means 100% free distributions: 
> http://www.gnu.org/links/links.html#FreeGNULinuxDistributions

While I agree that binary-only drivers are generally annoying, I consider
that firmware is part of the hardware itself a binary-only firmware
is perfectly fine. I'm sure the above linux distributions support
hardware for which they don't have firmware source. The first piece of
hardware which comes to mind is disk drives.

-- 
Manuel Bouyer <bouyer%antioche.eu.org@localhost>
     NetBSD: 26 ans d'experience feront toujours la difference
--