On Sat, Jul 18, 2015 at 01:20:19PM +0200, Ole Streicher wrote: > >> The use of non-free icons if IMO a perfect use case for non-free. > > ... and also yet another case when to make their life comfortable one > > should enable non-free. [...] > The main idea of non-free is to have such a pragmatic approach here. > > And the "put the non-free logos into non-free" solution would fit into > the do-it-yourself pragmatic of Debian: If you feel that there should be > a free alternative, just create one. When an alternative icon is good > enough that people will switch, then non-free is not needed anymore. Or > convince the copyright owner to make the logos free. I see no real point > in a heated discussion then.
Some trademark owners might be very annoyed if their name appears next to an icon that does not belong to their brand. I agree that what you describe would normally be the course of action how it should go: the proprietary (but distributable) way first in non-free and a free alternative in main (c.f. unrar and unar) once it's available. That being said it does not apply to everything. This is a hard case (unless we do not advertise search engines at all) and what Andrey meant (firmware) is also a hard case. It is possible that free firmware appears but it is also very unlikely and in the meantime it's unusable. Plus suddenly everyone has to enable non-free by default. You might call your proposition pragmatic, but the more pragmatic choice would be to keep the icons in main. Kind regards Philipp Kern, who still ponders if we should move firmware into a distinct component
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