On Friday 24 November 2006 22:26, Petter Urkedal wrote: > > The point I'm trying to make is that the manufacturer must identify > the subset of the hardware, firmware, and drivers which they claim > are open. Given that subset, it's either open or not, there is no > middle way. The practical implication is that when marketed as OHF > compliant, the ad can only list the subset of features which are > implemented by FOSS software/firmware (or it could have a disclaimer > next to the OHF logo which tells where to get more info). IANAL, but > I guess the trademark would serve as means to enforce fair > advertising, and enable us to use our definition of openness in doing > so.
That doesn't make sense to me. Why should a claim that the hardware is open be influenced by what kind of software exists? I wouldn't mind if someone sold open hardware with a proprietary driver, and put an OHF logo on it. Just as long as they don't say that the driver is open source or free software. To me, the OHF seal of approval should mean that the hardware is open, meaning you get the design in editing format (HDL, XCF, Autocad, whatever) and the usual rights along with it. There could be a second, lesser "open standards compliant" seal of approval, which would guarantee that Free/open firmware/drivers can be made. Whether any non-hardware parts of the product are open and/or open standards compliant is up to others to decide. > > So maybe the question is whether the firmware is part of the > > hardware. If it is, then the openness of the firmware affects the > > openness of the hardware. If it is part of the driver, then it > > doesn't. > > But if the hardware is fully documented and it's possibly to upload > new firmware, then I can't think of a clear way to decide if the > firmware is part of the hardware or the driver. From a philosophical > point of view, I'd never consider firmware part of the hardware, but > I may consider a "product" to comprise hardware, firmware, drivers, > and even software and services. So would you then require that the firmware, drivers, software and the services as well would be "open source"? How do you even have an open source service? > > I think it's hard to make a clear definition here. How is firmware > > different from software? > > I don't think there is a principal difference. Two different > architectures, one of which might be pretty exotic. Okay, there seems to be agreement on that. So firmware is software, not part of the hardware. Lourens
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