On Mon, Oct 25, 2004 at 11:46:03PM +0100, Matthew Garrett wrote: > I see nothing that suggests that "non-free component" is only meant to > apply to material shipped by Debian. Nor is there any suggestion that it > applies only to software (which is unsurprising, given the care taken to > remove all reference to software). How do you claim that the social > contract allows us to ship any drivers that require non-free firmware, > even if they're on the PCB?
The status quo, as I understand it, is that firmware which is uploaded from disk by a driver is a dependency, but firmware embedded in the hardware is treated as part of the hardware--that's certainly how it looks and acts to me, as a user. I believe this is consistent with the SC, though of course I don't claim it's the only rational way to interpret it. Marco's argument appears to be that drivers should be allowed in main that only function if they have access to a non-free firmware blob; that a driver that, lacking the file, merely bails and says "download this non-free piece first" should be allowed in main. Your argument, above, is in the exact other direction: that drivers which function without supplying any extra data, but that use non-free data already present on the hardware, should be considered contrib. I don't buy Marco's argument at all; it looks like just another attempt to thwart 2004-003, by saying "okay, fine, it's non-free, but I can still require it!". I think your interpretation is a rational one, but I havn't seen an argument of why it's a better one. It seems clear that this interpretation would almost no drivers at all, which makes it impractical. -- Glenn Maynard
