http://www.engadget.com/2006/10/11/olpc-under-fire-for-proprietary-components/ Engadget Comments for OLPC under fire for proprietary components http://www.engadget.com/media/feedlogo.gif http://www.engadget.com en-us Copyright 2008 Weblogs, Inc. The contents of this feed are available for non-commercial use only. Blogsmith http://www.blogsmith.com/http://www.engadget.com/2006/10/11/olpc-under-fire-for-proprietary-components/http://www.engadget.com/2006/10/11/olpc-under-fire-for-proprietary-components/Oct 11th 2006 9:31AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2006/10/11/olpc-under-fire-for-proprietary-components/http://www.engadget.com/2006/10/11/olpc-under-fire-for-proprietary-components/Oct 11th 2006 9:40AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2006/10/11/olpc-under-fire-for-proprietary-components/http://www.engadget.com/2006/10/11/olpc-under-fire-for-proprietary-components/
More pragmatically, closed-source drivers in an open-source OS are a terrible idea; they always lag behind the kernel. I remember, back in 2000, at an IETF meeting, I borrowed an 802.11b card for my laptop, only to discover that the only driver available worked only with an old version of the kernel. Said version had had a security bug so serious, Red Hat had warned users not to use it on any system with a network.

However, I suspect de Raadt is mainly upset because this means BSD won't be able to run on the OLPC.]]>Oct 11th 2006 10:46AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2006/10/11/olpc-under-fire-for-proprietary-components/http://www.engadget.com/2006/10/11/olpc-under-fire-for-proprietary-components/
I think the point is that starving Ethopians can't exactly afford a WinXP license, so it would be a huge advantage if these laptops could run an open source OS as opposed to turning this into a potential cash cow for Microsoft.]]>Oct 11th 2006 10:11AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2006/10/11/olpc-under-fire-for-proprietary-components/http://www.engadget.com/2006/10/11/olpc-under-fire-for-proprietary-components/Oct 11th 2006 10:12AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2006/10/11/olpc-under-fire-for-proprietary-components/http://www.engadget.com/2006/10/11/olpc-under-fire-for-proprietary-components/
I don't see how firmware for a NIC has anything to do with being a cash cow for microsoft.]]>Oct 11th 2006 10:18AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2006/10/11/olpc-under-fire-for-proprietary-components/http://www.engadget.com/2006/10/11/olpc-under-fire-for-proprietary-components/
In fact, it's not clear to me what proprietary hardware de Raadt is complaining about. He might be assuming that the SD controller (also from Marvell) is locked down; and, in fact, their original chip was. But, at OLPC's request, Marvell has already developed a new SD controller that complies with the SD Forum's publicly-available HCI spec, so that the Linux hdci driver (part of the kernel as of 2.6.17) will work with it. AMD has released the Geode's VSA (basically an in-chip emulation layer, like Transmeta's LongRun), minus the VESA part that they didn't own (and which OLPC doesn't need). Aside from those, the only device de Raadt identifies as requiring an NDA is the camera--not exactly an essential component.

de Raadt says, "If I am careful in selection, I can buy a laptop on the market today that has fewer proprietary parts."; but fewer than one sounds really unlikely. Oh, and the 2B1 runs LinuxBIOS; *no* other laptop on the market can say that.]]>Oct 11th 2006 12:38PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2006/10/11/olpc-under-fire-for-proprietary-components/http://www.engadget.com/2006/10/11/olpc-under-fire-for-proprietary-components/
As for this article - thats about the stupidest thing I have ever read. Oh, and you might as well introduce Stallman, because his name dosnt ring a bell, if you dont care about about sauce.

Hahahahaha... ]]>Oct 11th 2006 11:17AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2006/10/11/olpc-under-fire-for-proprietary-components/http://www.engadget.com/2006/10/11/olpc-under-fire-for-proprietary-components/Oct 11th 2006 12:38PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2006/10/11/olpc-under-fire-for-proprietary-components/http://www.engadget.com/2006/10/11/olpc-under-fire-for-proprietary-components/Oct 11th 2006 6:01PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2006/10/11/olpc-under-fire-for-proprietary-components/http://www.engadget.com/2006/10/11/olpc-under-fire-for-proprietary-components/Oct 11th 2006 7:40PM