> Thinkpenguin sells this modem.
>
https://www.thinkpenguin.com/gnu-linux/usb-4g-lte-advanced-modem-gnulinux-tpe-usb4glte
> Is not this modem proprietary?
There are two kinds of software used to support hardware devices: firmware
and drivers. A driver runs on your operating system and controls the device.
Firmware runs the device itself. Sometimes firmware needs to be provided by
the operating system and loaded onto the device. For example, if you try to
use most WiFi cards with Trisquel, they won't work because Trisquel doesn't
have copies of the firmware for those cards. However, sometimes the firmware
is already installed on the computer inside the device, so the operating
system does not need to provide it. ThinkPenguin's modem works with Trisquel
because the driver is free software, and the proprietary firmware is already
on the device so Trisquel does not need to provide a copy of it. There is
still proprietary firmware on the device, just not provided by Trisquel.
