----- Original Message ----- From: "Richard M Stallman" rms@gnu.org To: "Carl-Daniel Hailfinger" c-d.hailfinger.devel.2006@gmx.net Cc: arc@gnu.org; coreboot@coreboot.org Sent: Sunday, May 04, 2008 5:37 AM Subject: Re: [coreboot] [Fwd: Re: Contact Intel]
Drawing an ethical line thru a gray area is generally not straightforward. Often it is not possible to find a unique best place to draw it, and sometimes we should treat certain areas as in-betweens.
However, another network card with exactly the same chips and the same firmware, but a different model number, may get firmware updates from the vendor. That would _not_ qualify as ROM in your definition, at least as I understand it. The technical side of the ROM equivalence question does not allow for such distinctions.
This is a gray area. I think we can treat it as barely acceptable if we do not install firmware upgrades. But only barely, so we should move to free firmware if possible.
It isn't only software or firmware that's of concern. There should be no compromise: everything should be transparent and therefor auditable. (You doubt the importance of this for voting machines ?) See http://it.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/05/01/1233244
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