On Wed, Aug 23, 2006 at 03:40:49PM +0100, Matthew Garrett wrote: > Bernhard R. Link <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > > We are giving a promise here, that with the stuff in our distribution > > you have the freedom to use it, to give it to others and to fix it. > > This means the missing of legal obstacles and the possibility to do so. > > For this discussion "preferred form of modification" is perhaps not the > > best definition. It's good for licenses as it is not easily to work > > around. I think here the difference is between the source being in > > a form practical to edit or not. Without a practical form there is > > no possibility to change it. And this is a limitation we have to > > make clear to people and not lock them into by claiming all is good > > and well and it could be part of our free operating system. > > We never included non-free applications in main because we felt that > there was no need to. And, indeed, even in 1993 it was possible to use a > computer without any non-free applications. > > That doesn't hold with the firmware argument. With applications, we had > the choice between "Free but less functional" and "Non-free but more > functional". With firmware we have the choice between "Non-free but on > disk" and "Non-free but in ROM". There isn't a "Free" option at all yet. > > So I think the real question is "How does us refusing to ship non-free > firmware help free software?". If a user wants to use Debian, then the > obvious thing for them to do will be to buy hardware that has the > non-free firmware in ROM. Ironically, this will actually make it harder > for them to ever use free firmware! > > I think it's reasonable to refuse to ship non-free code when there's > actually a choice or when it's likely to provide an incentive to > implement a free version. But right now, I don't see any evidence that > refusing to ship non-free firmware will do anything other than cost us > users without providing any extra freedom.
I agree with you. But the point is on how you communicate about the fact. What Steve and others who seconded him propose is to ship non-free firmware in main, and declaring it as data, and thus disguising it as free software. By moving the non-free firmware to non-free, we clearly renew our believe in free software, and encourage effort to reverse engineer or convince vendors, as aurelien and piotr and a few others are reimplementing the apple mac os classic boot sector. It is still relatively easily possible to design the whole non-free firmware support in such a way that it is totally transparent to the user, apart of a message in the installer or something, which will inform him that he needs non-free firmware for its hardware, and asks if he wants to make use of it. So, shiping non-free code because there is no choice is just fine, but shiping it while insisting it is free is not. Friendly, Sven Luther -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
