Comment # 5 on bug 1198655 from Larry Finger

(In reply to Suse User from comment #0)
> STR:
> 
> 0. Test using TL-WN722N V3 wireless USB adapter:
> https://www.tp-link.com/us/support/download/tl-wn722n/
> 
> 1. Disable the use of proprietary binary blobs:
> 
> # mv /lib/firmware /lib/_firmware
> 
> 2. Run journalctl -f
> 
> 3. Plug the wifi adapter
> 
> RESULT:
> 
> As expected, journalctl displays error messages related to the inability to
> load the firmware blob.
> 
> However, there seems to exist a fully FOSS driver which works without blobs.
> The one on TP-Link's site is some old version and I could not build it (it
> shows errors). Fortunately, there is a newer version which works fine with
> openSUSE Tumbleweed 20220414, tested with kernel version:
> 
> $ uname -rpvi
> 5.17.2-1-pae #1 SMP PREEMPT Sat Apr 9 06:30:15 UTC 2022 (b49cf22) i686 i386
> 
> 4. Download the newer driver here (and use described steps to build and
> install it):
> 
> https://github.com/drygdryg/rtl8188eus
> 
> 5. Reboot
> 
> 6. Log in and plug in the USB wifi adapter (while watching journalctl -f)
> 
> RESULT:
> 
> The wifi connects successfully *without* failure messages in log related to
> inability to load firmware.
> 
> (NOTE: proprietary blobs are still in /lib/_firmware and hence not in use)
> 
> 
> This manual process would have the drawback of one having to rebuild the
> driver on each kernel update. So, it would be much better if openSUSE
> includes this building as part of the distro, as this driver is obviously
> FOSS.

In the driver that comes from Realtek, either directly or indirectly, the
firmware is stored in the code as a big table., thus your test was likely using
such a driver, and you were in fact using a binary blob that is published under
a GPL v2 license, but it is not available as source code for the imbedded CPU
in the NIC. To get that firmware file, I merely copied that huge table into a
separate program that wrote the contents into a binary file. The WHENCE file in
the linux-firmware repo is as follows: 
        Driver: rtl8188eu - Realtek 802.11n WLAN driver for RTL8188EU

        Info: Taken from Realtek version RTL8188EUS_linux_v4.1.4_6773.20130222
        File: rtlwifi/rtl8188eufw.bin

        Licence: Redistributable. See LICENCE.rtlwifi_firmware.txt for details.

The most pertinent part of the LICENCE file noted above is
        * No reverse engineering, decompilation, or disassembly of this
        software is permitted.

Yes, the driver files are FOSS, but information about the firmware is never
really open source, nor would disassembly be legal.