Theo's rewriting history on this one. (Score 3, Interesting)

I worked for six months to get Atmel to release their firmware under a licence which allowed redistribution. That was for use with the Linux atmel_cs driver. And I collaborated with Manuel Estrada Sainz to add the hotplug firmware loading code to Linux, to avoid violating the GPL by linking Atmel's proprietary stuff with the kernel. And I built and distributed packages of the firmware. And all of this is a piss-poor alternative to just releasing the source!