> But I think the FPGAs in products are more like the possible computer
> in my microwave oven: nobody installs software in them, so they might
> as well be circuits.
Really? All those wifi/raid/cpu/etc cards/chips out there that need
"firmware", you think they're not a mix of both microcontroller code and
other binary bits that configure an ASIC or FPGA?
I am not a hardware expert; I don't know sort of hardware the firmware
blobs run on. I will presume you're right.
Whether it runs on a computer or an FPGA, either way it's a program.
So the next crucial question is, do users normally install programs on
that device? For some devices, the answer is no. However, if the
firmware is stored in a file on the disk, and the system downloads it
into the device, the answer to that question is yes.
That is the case where I object to the non-free firmware blobs.
