November 2nd, 2006
Free hardware code a bad hack
Harald Welte, who runs GPL-Violations, has a new crusade. (Hat tip here to Heise Online, which alerted me to it. Danke, y'all.)
Welte wants hardware makers to stop delivering bad freeware, and start delivering GPL-compliant code in their designs that is worthy of them.
The German native wrote in his blog on Monday that hardware companies treat GPL code as freeware, sometimes using it, never improving it, and certainly never spawning useful projects based on it.
How many times have you seen some code coming out of a "GPL code release" from one of the many (mostly embedded) vendors that was actually useful to be contributed back to an existing Free Software project, or even that spawned a new Free Software project? I for my part am certain to say: Zero.
The code that's used is atrocious, he adds, "'throw-away software'. Fire and forget. The complete opposite of the long-term maintainability goals of about any FOSS project I know."
I am no judge of code (Welte says they're passing off a three-year old's scribblings as Picassos) but I do follow the market. Many types of hardware would benefit from the openness and transparency of good GPL code.
I happen to think that, with good GPL code, an 802.11 router would make an excellent application platform, in medical monitoring, home automation, and home inventory applications. The problem isn't just that hardware makers don't respect the GPL, but that they don't see hardware as something you build on anymore.
The last truly "open" piece of hardware I have seen was the IBM PC, and that was 25 years ago. To me this spells opportunity. Anyone want to build an open 802.11 router and find out?
Dana Blankenhorn has been a business journalist for 30 years, a tech freelancer since 1983. You can follow Dana on Twitter. See his full profile and disclosure of his industry affiliations.
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