NVIDIA does exactly what you said. Move everything to firmware and closed GL libraries, and open source a kernel module to facilitate communication. They even created different firmware versions to prevent open source drivers to use the whole card.
AMD did the inverse: They re-implemented a fully open driver from scratch, opened up the specs, made every part which they can make (legally) accessible, accessible, open sourced ROCm and send in packages to major distributions' (main / open source) repositories. Their firmware is closed source, but it's obtainable and doesn't require signatures to enable the card. They even clashed with HDMI forums to make a libre implementation of v2.1, but the forum basically threatened them.
Intel's graphics drivers are basically the same with AMD.
Broadcom / Intel / Realtek NICs work without their respective firmware blobs, yet their offloading capabilities are disabled. Either way, the drivers are completely open source and in the kernel mainline.
Same for most sound cards sans Creative Labs. I want to hit them with a foam cluebat so bad.
Logitech's all stuff works with open drivers. They are the primary contributor to V4L standard, standardize their webcam interfaces and provide drivers or help.
NVIDIA does exactly what you said. Move everything to firmware and closed GL libraries, and open source a kernel module to facilitate communication. They even created different firmware versions to prevent open source drivers to use the whole card.
AMD did the inverse: They re-implemented a fully open driver from scratch, opened up the specs, made every part which they can make (legally) accessible, accessible, open sourced ROCm and send in packages to major distributions' (main / open source) repositories. Their firmware is closed source, but it's obtainable and doesn't require signatures to enable the card. They even clashed with HDMI forums to make a libre implementation of v2.1, but the forum basically threatened them.
Intel's graphics drivers are basically the same with AMD.
Broadcom / Intel / Realtek NICs work without their respective firmware blobs, yet their offloading capabilities are disabled. Either way, the drivers are completely open source and in the kernel mainline.
Same for most sound cards sans Creative Labs. I want to hit them with a foam cluebat so bad.
Logitech's all stuff works with open drivers. They are the primary contributor to V4L standard, standardize their webcam interfaces and provide drivers or help.
Do you have any examples in mind?