@awooo The difference is that the microcode burned into the CPU is *hard*ware not software - and so the Free *Soft*ware Foundation has no comment about such microcode.

Also, you purchased the CPU, so it's physically yours and also you don't need to agree to any proprietary software license merely to use such CPU.

>as a binary with a redistributable license
You clearly haven't read the license of microcode.

One "microcode update" license from intel here is:
<snip>
Redistribution and use in binary form, without modification, are permitted,
provided that the following conditions are met:

1. Redistributions must reproduce the above copyright notice and the
following disclaimer in the documentation and/or other materials provided
with the distribution.

2. Neither the name of Intel Corporation nor the names of its suppliers may
be used to endorse or promote products derived from this software without
specific prior written permission.

3. No reverse engineering, decompilation, or disassembly of this software
is permitted.
<snip>

Such license is unacceptable, as it violates freedoms 0, 1 and 3 and so it would be hypocritical for the FSF to say that the usage of source under such license is acceptable.

The fact that intel specifically doesn't permit reverse engineering glows so bright that they must be hiding something incredibly malicious inside the "updates" that might not be in the ROM version (as something malicious burned into hardware is probably a lot easier to present as evidence to a court than specially obfuscated malware provided in the form of encrypted software that's also in an undocumented instruction set (as good luck explaining the malicious functionality to a judge that doesn't even know what software is)).

>but that software doesn't run inside your userspace or kernel.
You're running proprietary software on your CPU with ring -3 access, so I would say it's worse.


The real solution is to get decent hardware that's stable and works well without having to agree to a single proprietary software license.