[OnePlus 3T ROMs, Kernels, Recoveries, & Other Deve] :
Thanx. Don't mind, but since I'm low on time and my ip hookup is lte (I boom my data plan each month, even without fetching the same rom twice... ;) ), I would like to wait for the original download (complete cryptic end of file name and md5)... Hope you understand... :(

It's - among others - what I guessed from the changelogs.

BLOBS = Binary Large OBjectS (not sure, but I belive this phrase is originating to the early days of relational db development, when needed to put i.e. jpegs in a database.)

Since I'm low on time (SCNR... *lol*) I save the time to write "vendor proprietary files" by writing "blobs", though this is not 100% accurate (i.e. config files, dts files, permission files etc aren't "binary", but ascii), I think it's accurate enough...

When I refer to "blobs" I'm talking of ALL files, we either take from oxygenos or we have kanged from other devices (i.e.: libuiblur.so or the widevine stack) or we have taken and modified (OnePlusCamera or qti-telephony-common.jar). Or in other words: every single file in the rom we have no sourcecode for.

The comprehensive list of all this files is in the device tree in the 4 files proprietary-fi*. In the same location you'll find the script "extract-files.sh": this reads proprietary-fi* and extracts the files from either a running installation via adb, or from the first argument (expecting argument pointing to an unpacked rom).

When I refer to "firmware", I'm talking of all binaries needed to run a rom that are not placed in ramdisk or /system. Again not very accurate, but the picture is quite understandablw: you can think of the firmware as some kind of "bios". Remember intel based pc's: if you have i.e. an old (vesa/lb/eisa/isa/early pci) raid controler on bootup the controlers bios is loaded, initialized and run. The same happens if i.e. NON-HLOS.bin is loaded: to initialize and run the SOC's modem some proprietary code is needed. This code is not located in an eeprom (like on this example's raid controler) but in a seperate partition (which makes perfect sense: it's SingleOnChip]; no need to put additional mem (i.e. eeprom) on the SoC for each subsystem (like modem for this matter) if you can use devices mmc with own partiti8ns for each need "blob"...

The comprehensive list of these files is in the file proprietary-firmware.txt.

In short:

blobs = vendor provided proprietary files (not accurate, but good to feed my lazyness) = ALL files, we need to run our device AND we have no source code for.

firmware = all files needed to run our device, which are NOT placed in system or ramdisk (part of boot partition).

To make it more complecated: some firmwares on some devices (i.e. bluetooth firmware for chagallwifi) resides in /system. Those are NOT needed to boot but on usage... I would call them "firmware", but I learned on xda the very most devs refer to firmware only if it is not in /system or ramdisk.

On other platforms then xda many people are refering to a ready to flash rom's zip file when saying "firmware".

For me (and quite some people here on xda) firmware are elements of blobs. blobs are elements of rom.

Bottom line: I call "firmware" what is in the firmware zips in OP.

As you can easily see, when comparing my explanation, with the pure information of "Bottom line", I don't understand, what I'm writing neither... *lol* And, hey: if I would understand, what I'm writing - I wouldn't do so... *lol*

I know you are reading here frequently - but it was such a nice context to emphasize, that the roms should be used with the firmware revision from the releasenotes... ;)