True, that wasn't precisely stated. I honestly believe that these blobs wouldn't need to be proprietary. I work on proprietary code for embedded systems too an

True, that wasn't precisely stated. I honestly believe that these blobs wouldn't need to be proprietary. I work on proprietary code for embedded systems too and we don't release the source either. But if it were leaked there is not really a threat to our intellectual property. Maybe the main benefit really is security through obscurity. We don't do general hardware though and it wouldn't be of much interest, but it would be nice to get manufacturers to open up here. Not even the source for the blobs, but some documentation to interface the firmware perhaps. Sure, it is always some work if you release something to the public or maybe parts of your software need licences themselves, but if possible I would expect this to net secondary benefits for the manufacturers. If people know your hardware, they might use it in their applications as well... Just getting manufacturers here to open up would still be nice and I believe they could benefit as well.