Hi Hakan, On Wed, Jun 01, 2022 at 09:41:35AM +0300, Hakan Bayındır wrote: > > > On 30.05.2022 09:36, Andrey Rahmatullin wrote: > > On Sun, May 29, 2022 at 05:33:21PM -0400, Bobby wrote: > > > There are definitely people who use forks because it's easier to > > > install non-free firmware. What's the problem with that? Let them use > > > forks. A distro can't be all things to all people. > > This would mean almost officially dropping support for user computers and, > > as I've heard, many of the servers. It's certainly possible but I'm afraid > > this will lead to even fewer new contributors to Debian. > > As a person who's handling a lot of servers, I can tell that most high > performance hardware is running either load-on-boot (generally ethernet and > other network cards) or persistent (generally storage and RAID contollers) > non-free firmware blobs. > > First category can perform basic tasks without firmware, but servers being > servers, this low performance mode is undesirable barring light-load servers > which is both a minority and a contradiction to the word server in my > profession. > Basic tasks include networking - many IBM and Dell servers use(d) Broadcom chipsets which wouldn't work without a non-free driver. Been caught out like that installing in a data centre: can't get networking to work to get the drivers I need for the network card.
> Also, this persistent firmware is meant to be updated throughout the life of > the hardware (5-10 years in normal cases). This is why there's fwupd which > can manage this upgrade process very elegantly. > If you're unlucky, you may find that support just isn't there any more - some MegaRAID / LSI cards :( > > > Debian is unique in this area, and it would be a shame to sacrifice that > > > and make it just like all the rest. And it's unclear what benefit there > > > is to attracting a larger and larger userbase as a bottom-line. It is > > > not a commercial project, so they will not be paying customers. The > > > best-case scenario is that people are attracted to making contributions > > > or becoming more interested in free software, which I thought was the > > > main goal. So if that isn't prioritized, what's the point? > > I'm afraid that not providing hardware support is not the same as > > prioritizing free software, or even free hardware. > > While I proposed a different way for supporting this binary blobs and > defended it rather strongly in this mailing list, I'd love to see Debian > support more hardware. > > On the other hand, I still hold the view that inclusion of this firmware > should be in line with the due-diligence Debian is famous for. i.e. Labeling > non-free firmware correctly, and giving the user freedom to not install > them, even if this cripples the target hardware in question. > > Cheers, > > Hakan > All the very best, as ever, Andy Cater
