4 ms·

I don't think the "blob" in "binary blob" is the same as the database "BLOB" type. Rather, the word "blob" is chosen for its negative connotations and has the t

I don't think the "blob" in "binary blob" is the same as the database "BLOB" type. Rather, the word "blob" is chosen for its negative connotations and has the typical layman meaning.

tedunangst 14y ago
Yes. http://www.openbsd.org/39.html http://www.openbsd.org/39.html Does that look like a "binary large object" to you?
- koide 14y ago
  If you actually go into the lyrics of the song: http://www.openbsd.org/lyrics.html#39 http://www.openbsd.org/lyrics.html#39 you'll see he's talking about blobs exactly as binary large objects. He never uses the phrase "binary blob". He's just talking about of how are blobs in drivers evil for BSD, taking advantage of the evil amoeba concept.
  - tedunangst 14y ago
    I can assure you that nobody in the openbsd project is using blob as an acronym. To be clear, a binary blob is so named because it's an amorphous lump (as opposed to source code, which has structure). [I agree, the word binary is redundant (nobody complains about source blobs), but not because it's an acronym. The phrase "unfree blob" would also be redundant, since blobs are unfree by definition.]
    - koide 14y ago
      If you agree that binary is redundant, that's enough for me. Although I wonder how the word blob came to be used in BSD. You don't happen to have the first use in some mailing list archive? Anyway, BSD's usage is not actually the general use of the word, as you can see in the link I've posted somewhere else in this nitpicking thread, people usually mean a bunch of bytes, without connotation.
koide 14y ago
Not at all, for example, search for "blob" here: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4981376 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4981376 There is one correct use, and three other uses talking about "binary blobs" without a negative connotation. My opinion is that the layman term got mixed up with the database term and thus we got this mess (should I say blob?)
- mistercow 14y ago
  I don't think any of those are intended to imply "binary large object". They are just talking about non-human-readable data. They may not be implying any negative connotations anymore, but that's the origin of "binary blob".

I don't think the "blob" in "binary blob" is the same as the database "BLOB" type. Rather, the word "blob" is chosen for its negative connotations and has the typical layman meaning.

tedunangst 14y ago

Yes. http://www.openbsd.org/39.html http://www.openbsd.org/39.html Does that look like a "binary large object" to you?

koide 14y ago
If you actually go into the lyrics of the song: http://www.openbsd.org/lyrics.html#39 http://www.openbsd.org/lyrics.html#39 you'll see he's talking about blobs exactly as binary large objects. He never uses the phrase "binary blob". He's just talking about of how are blobs in drivers evil for BSD, taking advantage of the evil amoeba concept.
- tedunangst 14y ago
  I can assure you that nobody in the openbsd project is using blob as an acronym. To be clear, a binary blob is so named because it's an amorphous lump (as opposed to source code, which has structure). [I agree, the word binary is redundant (nobody complains about source blobs), but not because it's an acronym. The phrase "unfree blob" would also be redundant, since blobs are unfree by definition.]
  - koide 14y ago
    If you agree that binary is redundant, that's enough for me. Although I wonder how the word blob came to be used in BSD. You don't happen to have the first use in some mailing list archive? Anyway, BSD's usage is not actually the general use of the word, as you can see in the link I've posted somewhere else in this nitpicking thread, people usually mean a bunch of bytes, without connotation.

koide 14y ago

Not at all, for example, search for "blob" here: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4981376 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4981376 There is one correct use, and three other uses talking about "binary blobs" without a negative connotation. My opinion is that the layman term got mixed up with the database term and thus we got this mess (should I say blob?)

mistercow 14y ago
I don't think any of those are intended to imply "binary large object". They are just talking about non-human-readable data. They may not be implying any negative connotations anymore, but that's the origin of "binary blob".