I’m not a fan of GrapheneOS, but the point they bring up here is valid. There is already proprietary firmware on your computer. There’s no reason why you shouldn’t be updating it to protect yourself from serious exploits. The FSF takes an ideological stance rather than a practical one, unfortunately.
I agree with you: the FSF can seem unwavering in their stance, even in the face of practicality. I’m really sorry for this incredibly nit-picky detail, but I think practicality is ideological too. For better or for worse, we can’t escape ideas or be free from them, so we have to choose which we value. For example, while I tend to choose software freedom over practicality, I also have, at times, chosen practicality over freedom.
Basically, if the firmware is not intended to be updated it’s fine. But distributing updates, like security fixes, for firmware as blobs is somehow bad.
However, there is one exception for secondary embedded processors. The exception applies to software delivered inside auxiliary and low-level processors and FPGAs, within which software installation is not intended after the user obtains the product. This can include, for instance, microcode inside a processor, firmware built into an I/O device, or the gate pattern of an FPGA. The software in such secondary processors does not count as product software.
I know. And that’s reasonable of course. I’m sure most of us would agree that proprietary blobs are bad. I’m optimistic that firmware will become more open in the future though.
I’m not a fan of GrapheneOS, but the point they bring up here is valid. There is already proprietary firmware on your computer. There’s no reason why you shouldn’t be updating it to protect yourself from serious exploits. The FSF takes an ideological stance rather than a practical one, unfortunately.
I agree with you: the FSF can seem unwavering in their stance, even in the face of practicality. I’m really sorry for this incredibly nit-picky detail, but I think practicality is ideological too. For better or for worse, we can’t escape ideas or be free from them, so we have to choose which we value. For example, while I tend to choose software freedom over practicality, I also have, at times, chosen practicality over freedom.
That’s true. I didn’t think about that. Thank you. :)
Except they also advocate using compute devices that only use blobless firmware
Yeah, the FSF stance on firmware is really weird.
Basically, if the firmware is not intended to be updated it’s fine. But distributing updates, like security fixes, for firmware as blobs is somehow bad.
https://ryf.fsf.org/about/criteria
Here’s an article from the previous time (?) this topic came up.
https://ariadne.space/2022/01/22/the-fsfs-relationship-with-firmware-is-harmful-to-free-software-users/
I know. And that’s reasonable of course. I’m sure most of us would agree that proprietary blobs are bad. I’m optimistic that firmware will become more open in the future though.