I Don’t Like Binary Blobs

A binary blob is a driver where the source code for that driver isn’t publicly available through a open source or free (not freeware there is a huge difference) license. Binary blobs can pose some legal questions for some operating systems. Is it truly legal according to the GNU Public License? This question is valid, because when your writing a driver it uses API’s that are under the GPL. Since it uses those API’s that makes a derivative work and while not being licensed under the GPL makes it violate the GPL.

The real reason why I don’t like binary blobs isn’t the legal questions it poses, because the problems I see also effects operating systems licensed under the BSD licenses. Binary blobs creates an unintegerated experience. When it’s not developed to be included in the operating system the drivers tend to be not compatible with certain features. For example not being compatible with a nicer boot process. Sometimes the issue is greater than being incompatible with some features. These issues eventually causes people to use older software. At times binary blobs from nVidia or ATI aren’t compatible with the latest verison of the kernel. The practice of being dependent on binary blobs to make hardware compatble with many operating systems is truly a diminishing return.