[ramshorns]

Yeah, microcode updates are proprietary software too. The weird result is that if you want a system with no proprietary software, you end up having to use the original microcode which is burned onto the chip and counts as hardware.

It's not a perfect solution but maybe it's a reasonable place to draw the line, until we have open source hardware processors using RISC-V or something.

[fakename11]

Then you have to accept all the bugs with the original...

[notwedtm]

...and that a backdoor wasn't written into the original microcode, or that a state-sponsored actor didn't intercept during shipping...