Re: [Trisquel-users] Things we already knew but the rest of the world is still learning now

[jason]

Imagine you have a program running on your computer. Now, use your  
imagination to transfer that same program to (say) your WiFi card or your  
HDD/SSD and run it there. Because yes - those things have CPUs in them with  
RAM and are full computers in their own right. Some, like your HDD/SSD even  
have their own seperate permanent storage so that they can reload those  
programs when they get powered on. Other devices may have their own permanent  
storage or they may need to have the program re-transferred in to them the  
next time they get turned on. Intel's WiFi is like that, where the kernel has  
to re-transfer the program in to the WiFi card each time on boot.)

Anyway, because it's moved to say a WiFi card or inside your HDD/SSD now it's  
"firmware." The only difference is where the program runs, which is not much  
of a difference. It's still software and still needs to be free the same as  
all other programs.