:KernelTrap: OpenBSD: Intel Accused Of Being "An Open Source Fraud"
KernelTrap: OpenBSD: Intel Accused Of Being "An Open Source Fraud" Oct 2, 2006, 14 :15 UTC (1 Talkback[s]) (7432 reads)
"Damien Bergamini started a thread on the OpenBSD -misc mailing list in which he summarized Intel's policy toward open-source software being to 'make us look like we're open-source friendly by opening a project on sourceforge,' and, 'give the open-source community the bare minimum so that they can serve as our beta-testers.' Damien released a reverse engineered blob-free driver for an Intel wireless chipset earlier this year, but work is slow as Intel does not freely provide documentation to the chipset. OpenBSD's battle with Intel has been ongoing for some time leading project creator Theo de Raadt to say, 'before we ask a vendor, we have already lost (ie. the device does not work). When a vendor says no, we have lost nothing further--there is no way we can lose further than having the device not work. We can only win, and then the device works. So there is no point in giving up until we win back the rights to write software for the hardware that we have purchased.' As before, the goal is to get Intel to provide a freely distributable binary firmware..."
