Macbook donation (wireless needs fixing)

[Alfred Perlstein]

On 2/7/16 11:14 PM, NGie Cooper wrote:
>> On Feb 7, 2016, at 21:39, Alfred Perlstein <alfred at freebsd.org> wrote:
>>
>> On 2/7/16 4:24 PM, Brandon Vincent wrote:
>>> On Sun, Feb 7, 2016 at 2:41 PM, Alfred Perlstein <alfred at freebsd.org> wrote:
>>>> Oh, strange, let me see why my macbook4,1 doesn't work with this... maybe
>>>> it's just not loaded by default?
>>> You'll need the firmware contained in ports/net/bwi-firmware-kmod.
>> This can't be part of the base distribution?
> Not sure of the details, but it looks like no:
>
> NO_PACKAGE=     this is a modified version of a restricted firmware
>
> :(…
Yes, but last time it was someone being overly zealous about some other 
firmware that turned out to be fine.

Why is this firmware restricted?  How are others distributing it? Seems 
silly.

-Alfred