On Sun, Oct 01, 2006 at 03:01:13AM +0200, Mark Weinem wrote:
> As "we" don't need blobs, there's no need to find a balance. Let's 
> concentrate on making things possible with open-source software - and 
> forget about the rest!

In general, NetBSD's philosophy has been to prefer source for
everything, but to accept binary blobs as/when necessary to get
the hardware support.  If an open source alternative to binary
blobs (that provides the same level of support, functionality, and
reliability) is available, then we would prefer that code.

If you don't like blobs, then you can make it your personal mission
to replace them.  We'd love to have no blobs in the system!

But as long as there is popular hardware out there that can be
supported with blobs, and the blobs are available under adequate
terms (i.e., that we can redistribute them), then we'll take what
we can get.  It's not an ideologically pure position, but it's a
practical position.

And this, of course, is my personal understanding of the
situation, goals, etc.

If you want to influence policy, this is not the place to do it.

-allen

-- 
Allen Briggs  |  http://www.ninthwonder.com/~briggs/  |  briggs@ninthwonder.com