> Raul Miller <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > It's different because, when the firmware is built into the device, > > the person who has the device has the firmware. > > > > Note that this difference is similar in character to the difference > > between main and contrib.
On Tue, Oct 26, 2004 at 01:39:03PM +0100, Matthew Garrett wrote: > How? Main is free software that doesn't require non-free code. > Contrib is free software that does require non-free code. I said similar, not identical. The difference I was referring to was the difference of convenience -- using software from contrib requires a few extra steps. Similarly, using an external copy of firmware requires a few extra steps. > Note that the social contract does not use the word "depends". It uses "require", which is close enough. > Code goes in contrib if it requires non-free code regardless of whether > or not that is expressed as a dependency in the package management sense. Agreed -- though obviously the package management sense is intended to represent a similar concept. [A different kind of similarity from the one I mentioned above.] > All of the hardware under discussion requires non-free code. That's one way of looking at it. >From within a framework of thought that looks at the issue that way: where meeting the hardware's non-free code requirements is totally out of our control, we don't do anything about the issue. Similarly, we distribute web browsers which visit servers where those servers require non-free code. For the cases where those servers are totally out of our control, we don't do anything about that issue. -- Raul