> I know nothing about ATI, Radeon etc., but from reading this
> discussion I got the impression there is a bit of confusion here
> between "firmwareness" and freedom -- a firmware can be FaiF, as long
> as it is licensed under an appropriated license. (This is just a
> logical consideration, not an empiric one.)

How can be firmware free while there is no source available and no
documentation of the instruction set used?  Skilled hackers outside AMD
do not know what this firmware does due to this.  (It's not important on
what CPU does the program run.)

Older Radeon firmware is under the MIT license, I consider it a good
example of free licenses being insuffiecient for software freedom.
(It's easy to find also e.g. GPL-licensed sourceless firmware.)

I don't know a solution for the original issue discussed here; X loading
various unavailable drivers is harmless, the X driver radeon usually
works on Trisquel if a new enough kernel is used.

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