@emilis You need to look into a mirror and think who's the stupid one.

Yes, it's preferable that replacing something is slightly harder just as long as nobody needs to accept a proprietary software license that forbids reverse engineering until the day such is replaced.

Most of the licenses of runtime load-required proprietary software forbid reverse engineering and it being potentially *illegal* to replace such software is a much higher hurdle than maybe needing to attach a hardware flasher during development.

I'd much rather prefer it if hardware didn't come with or require proprietary software at all, so for the moment a compromise is needed, but I refuse to compromise ruinously: https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/compromise.en.html


Firmware stored in ROM is a different topic entirely, as that's hardware, not software.

All hardware is proprietary and not much can be done about that until the software problem is solved.

A ROM that happens to store processor instructions can therefore be treated as equivalent to a circuit and the question is then if the circuit is malicious.

ROM chips used to be quite large external chips, thus replacement of such was possible with a bit of difficult - thus the name firmware.

ROM is now typically buried deep inside a SoC and therefore modification or replacement isn't feasible - so such ROM isn't firmware.


It's still the case that when you buy something, without signing a *fair* agreement that says otherwise, you own it and anything that comes on that device and therefore any "licenses" that try to restrict how you use the physical components of that hardware are null and void.

Of course the manufacturer will try to claim otherwise, but you can still tell them to take such claims and shove it (but maybe not for much longer).