On Wed, Aug 23, 2006 at 07:25:10PM +0100, MJ Ray wrote: > Matthew Garrett <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > > 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. > > The above argument seems to be "If I don't see it, it doesn't matter". > > Of course, evidence is unlikely to appear before the action is taken. > I doubt any corporation will declare "if debian does this, we'll follow > the DFSG instead". Instead, we each get to make our best guesses. > > I think the idea that refusing to ship non-free firmware in main will > strengthen demand for free firmware is worthy of consideration. Debian > helps users to take control of their operating system. Increasing the > demand for free firmware might also help users to take control of their > hardware, or at least highlight that there's this crap which their > operating system uses to support their hardware but doesn't have its > normal freedoms. > > However, I'm undecided whether it's a good idea to exclude them from the > distribution CDs and so on. How big is the problem of vital hardware > which won't work without firmware being copied to it? Should we split > non-free into non-free-hardware and non-free, allowing non-free-hardware > packages onto the CDs?
I would indeed vote for a solution including a non-free hardware, or even better an additional CD, which contained a non-free version of d-i (which need to include certain non-free firmwares and drivers in the images), and all the additional non-free firmware stuff. This way, we could add a list of pci ids needding non-fre hardware, and do a check pretty early in the installer, and if those non-free hardware is found, inform the user about it, and use the non-free installer CD instead, and all the rest would be taken care for him. Friendly, Sven Luther -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
