Binary blob: Difference between revisions

Revision as of 06:37, 19 January 2023

Revision as of 19:11, 30 January 2023

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}}</ref> The term ''[[Binary large object|blob]]'' was first used in [[database management system]]s to describe a collection of [[binary data]] stored as a single entity.

When [[computer hardware]] vendors provide complete technical documentation for their products, operating system developers are able to write hardware device drivers to be included in the operating system kernels. However, some vendors, such as [[Nvidia#DocumentationOpen-source andsoftware driverssupport|Nvidia]], do not provide complete documentation for some of their products and instead provide binary-only drivers. This practice is most common for [[GPU|accelerated graphics]] drivers, [[Wireless network interface controller|wireless networking device]]s, and hardware [[RAID controller]]s.<ref>{{cite web | url = https://packages.debian.org/source/sid/firmware-nonfree | title = Debian packages built from the source package 'firmware-nonfree' - Binary firmware for various drivers in the Linux kernel | year = 2010 | access-date = 2010-03-25}}</ref> Most notably, binary blobs are very uncommon for non-wireless [[network interface controller]]s, which can almost always be configured via standard utilities (like [[ifconfig]]) out of the box; [[Theo de Raadt]] of [[OpenBSD]] attributes this to the work done by a single [[FreeBSD]] developer.<ref name=lor-opencon06>{{cite web

|author= Constantine A. Murenin |date= 2006-12-10

|url= https://www.linux.org.ru/news/hardware/1690470

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|url= https://www.gnu.org/distros/free-system-distribution-guidelines.html#nonfree-firmware

|title= Nonfree Firmware

|work= {{Section link|GNU Project#|Free System Distribution Guidelines (GNU FSDG)}}

|publisher= [[Free Software Foundation]]

}}</ref>