[plex86] Re: Licensing issues (and Debian policy as a side note)

[Chip Salzenberg]

According to John Summerfield:
> [EMAIL PROTECTED] said:
> > First, the easy thing [skip this paragraph if you could care less
> > about Debian policies]. Debian has set itself a policy to seperate
> > entirely free software packages (`main') from free software packages
> > which need a non-free component to run (`contrib') [...]
> 
> Linux (the kernel) is GPL. Right?
> on Intel, it absolutely requires a BIOS to boot. Right?

Right.  Right.

> BIOSes are non-free. Right?

Wrong, sorta.

While all extant consumer-ready i386 BIOSes are currently non-free, a
free BIOS could be created to replace them.  And in fact there are at
least two projects (FreeBIOS and LinuxBIOS) to do just that.
-- 
Chip Salzenberg              - a.k.a. -             <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
 "We have no fuel on board, plus or minus 8 kilograms."  -- NEAR tech