Bug#1029211: debian-policy: Add mention of the new non-free-firmware archive area

[Edward Little]

Please remove the following email address:  e.little...@gmail.com

On Sat, Sep 9, 2023 at 5:48 PM Russ Allbery  wrote:

> Gunnar Wolf  writes:
>
> > It has been four months since the General Resolution 2022/vote_003 was
> > voted¹, but it has not yet been completely adopted. The archive area was
> > created and at least a package was uploaded to it in October, but it has
> > not seen further movement. Two days ago, a call to action for moving
> > packages was sent by Cyril Brulebois², and I just sent a mail checking
> > for other places where it should be included³.
>
> > ¹ https://www.debian.org/vote/2022/vote_003
> > ² https://lists.debian.org/debian-boot/2023/01/msg00150.html
> > ³ https://lists.debian.org/debian-project/2023/01/msg00018.html
>
> > To my surprise, the non-free-firmware archive area has not yet been
> > discussed for inclusion in the Policy.
>
> > I am (now!) aware there is a clear process to get changes included in
> > the Policy, but this is the first time I do this, so please excuse me
> > for jumping all the way to "State D: Wording proposed" (of course, my
> > words can be checked and improved, particularly given I'm not a native
> > English speaker).
>
> > ⁴ https://www.debian.org/doc/debian-policy/ap-process.html
>
> > I am suggesting the following patch, which I'm attaching to this bug
> > report, and also uploaded them to my fork of debian-policy in Salsa:
>
> >
> https://salsa.debian.org/gwolf/policy/-/commit/79c58a40065c01f56850f86e883d8fa482c7cca0
>
> Thank you!  I also second this change, and have merged it for the next
> version of Policy, including the fixes suggested by James Addison.  I
> numbered the footnotes in chapter two so that both non-free and
> non-free-firmware could reference the same footnote.
>
> An editorial note: Gunnar's patch introduced non-free-firmware after main
> and before contrib and non-free, and after some consideration I kept that
> order because I think it reflects the high likelihood that the typical
> user will encounter the non-free-firmware archive area given the results
> of the GR.  That does mean that the contrib and non-free sections have
> been renumbered to 2.2.3 and 2.2.4, which resurrects a section 2.2.4 that
> previously was for non-US back when we had cryptography restrictions.  I
> don't think this will cause any actual problems (and one of my long-term
> wishlist items is for Policy to rely less on section numbering, which is
> inherently unstable, and switch to some sort of persistent ID), but it
> seemed worth mentioning.
>
> --
> Russ Allbery (r...@debian.org)  
>
>

Bug#1029211: debian-policy: Add mention of the new non-free-firmware archive area

[Russ Allbery]

Gunnar Wolf  writes:

> It has been four months since the General Resolution 2022/vote_003 was
> voted¹, but it has not yet been completely adopted. The archive area was
> created and at least a package was uploaded to it in October, but it has
> not seen further movement. Two days ago, a call to action for moving
> packages was sent by Cyril Brulebois², and I just sent a mail checking
> for other places where it should be included³.

> ¹ https://www.debian.org/vote/2022/vote_003
> ² https://lists.debian.org/debian-boot/2023/01/msg00150.html
> ³ https://lists.debian.org/debian-project/2023/01/msg00018.html

> To my surprise, the non-free-firmware archive area has not yet been
> discussed for inclusion in the Policy.

> I am (now!) aware there is a clear process to get changes included in
> the Policy, but this is the first time I do this, so please excuse me
> for jumping all the way to "State D: Wording proposed" (of course, my
> words can be checked and improved, particularly given I'm not a native
> English speaker).

> ⁴ https://www.debian.org/doc/debian-policy/ap-process.html

> I am suggesting the following patch, which I'm attaching to this bug
> report, and also uploaded them to my fork of debian-policy in Salsa:

> 
> https://salsa.debian.org/gwolf/policy/-/commit/79c58a40065c01f56850f86e883d8fa482c7cca0

Thank you!  I also second this change, and have merged it for the next
version of Policy, including the fixes suggested by James Addison.  I
numbered the footnotes in chapter two so that both non-free and
non-free-firmware could reference the same footnote.

An editorial note: Gunnar's patch introduced non-free-firmware after main
and before contrib and non-free, and after some consideration I kept that
order because I think it reflects the high likelihood that the typical
user will encounter the non-free-firmware archive area given the results
of the GR.  That does mean that the contrib and non-free sections have
been renumbered to 2.2.3 and 2.2.4, which resurrects a section 2.2.4 that
previously was for non-US back when we had cryptography restrictions.  I
don't think this will cause any actual problems (and one of my long-term
wishlist items is for Policy to rely less on section numbering, which is
inherently unstable, and switch to some sort of persistent ID), but it
seemed worth mentioning.

-- 
Russ Allbery (r...@debian.org)  

Bug#1029211: debian-policy: Add mention of the new non-free-firmware archive area

[Holger Levsen]

On Thu, Jan 19, 2023 at 11:28:41AM -0600, Gunnar Wolf wrote:
> diff --git a/policy/ch-archive.rst b/policy/ch-archive.rst
> index ab04261..15b9343 100644
> --- a/policy/ch-archive.rst
> +++ b/policy/ch-archive.rst
> @@ -24,11 +24,11 @@ The aims of this are:
>  
>  The *main* archive area forms the *Debian distribution*.
>  
> -Packages in the other archive areas (``contrib``, ``non-free``) are not
> -considered to be part of the Debian distribution, although we support
> -their use and provide infrastructure for them (such as our bug-tracking
> -system and mailing lists). This Debian Policy Manual applies to these
> -packages as well.
> +Packages in the other archive areas (``non-free-firmware``,
> +``contrib``, ``non-free``) are not considered to be part of the Debian
> +distribution, although we support their use and provide infrastructure
> +for them (such as our bug-tracking system and mailing lists). This
> +Debian Policy Manual applies to these packages as well.
>  
>  .. _s-dfsg:
>  
> @@ -130,6 +130,27 @@ In addition, the packages in *main*
>  
>  - must meet all policy requirements presented in this manual.
>  
> +.. _s-non-free-firmware:
> +
> +The non-free-firmware archive area
> +~~
> +
> +The *non-free-firmware* archive area contains packages providing
> +firmware needed to initialize, use or keep updated hardware required
> +by our users, typically necessary for important functions to be
> +available (i.e. wireless network connectivity) or for fixing security
> +defects in hardware (i.e. CPU microcode updates). Packages in this
> +archive may not comply with all of the policy requirements in this
> +manual due to lack of source code availability, restrictions on
> +modification or other limitations.
> +
> +Packages in *non-free-firmware*
> +
> +- must not be so buggy that we refuse to support them, and
> +
> +  - must meet all policy requiremens presented in this manual that it
> +is possible for them to meet.
> +
>  .. _s-contrib:
>  
>  The contrib archive area
> @@ -261,8 +282,8 @@ prohibited" and "distribution restricted".
>  Sections
>  
>  
> -The packages in the archive areas *main*, *contrib* and *non-free* are
> -grouped further into *sections* to simplify handling.
> +The packages in the archive areas *main*, *non-free-firmware*, *contrib*
> +and *non-free* are grouped further into *sections* to simplify handling.
>  
>  The archive area and section for each package should be specified in the
>  package's ``Section`` control record (see
> @@ -272,8 +293,8 @@ the Debian distribution. The ``Section`` field should be 
> of the form:
>  
>  -  *section* if the package is in the *main* archive area,
>  
> --  *area/section* if the package is in the *contrib* or *non-free*
> -   archive areas.
> +-  *area/section* if the package is in the *non-free-firmware*, *contrib*
> +   or *non-free* archive areas.
>  
>  The Debian archive maintainers provide the authoritative list of
>  sections. At present, they are: admin, cli-mono, comm, database, debug,

seconded, with or without the minor fixes by James Addison. thanks!


-- 
cheers,
Holger

 ⢀⣴⠾⠻⢶⣦⠀
 ⣾⠁⢠⠒⠀⣿⡁  holger@(debian|reproducible-builds|layer-acht).org
 ⢿⡄⠘⠷⠚⠋⠀  OpenPGP: B8BF54137B09D35CF026FE9D 091AB856069AAA1C
 ⠈⠳⣄

If you upload your address book to "the cloud", I don't want to be in it.


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Description: PGP signature

Bug#1029211: debian-policy: Add mention of the new non-free-firmware archive area

[James Addison]

Package: debian-policy
Followup-For: Bug #1029211

Hi Gunnar,

Please find linked below two edits based on initial proofreading of your patch:

 - 
https://salsa.debian.org/jayaddison/policy/-/commit/775f589a7cf0c27ee7103eec7a16b29eccbf3d02

 - 
https://salsa.debian.org/jayaddison/policy/-/commit/0f893cbd70520beba404d56f9c4172e94e3be721

(the former results in duplicate footnotes.. perhaps there's a good way to
resolve that, somehow?)

Thanks,
James

Bug#1029211: debian-policy: Add mention of the new non-free-firmware archive area

[Gunnar Wolf]

Package: debian-policy
Version: 4.6.2.0
Severity: normal
Tags: patch

It has been four months since the General Resolution 2022/vote_003 was
voted¹, but it has not yet been completely adopted. The archive area
was created and at least a package was uploaded to it in October, but
it has not seen further movement. Two days ago, a call to action for
moving packages was sent by Cyril Brulebois², and I just sent a mail
checking for other places where it should be included³.

¹ https://www.debian.org/vote/2022/vote_003
² https://lists.debian.org/debian-boot/2023/01/msg00150.html
³ https://lists.debian.org/debian-project/2023/01/msg00018.html

To my surprise, the non-free-firmware archive area has not yet been
discussed for inclusion in the Policy.

I am (now!) aware there is a clear process to get changes included in
the Policy, but this is the first time I do this, so please excuse me
for jumping all the way to "State D: Wording proposed" (of course, my
words can be checked and improved, particularly given I'm not a native
English speaker).

⁴ https://www.debian.org/doc/debian-policy/ap-process.html

I am suggesting the following patch, which I'm attaching to this bug
report, and also uploaded them to my fork of debian-policy in Salsa:


https://salsa.debian.org/gwolf/policy/-/commit/79c58a40065c01f56850f86e883d8fa482c7cca0

Thank you very much for considering this!

-- System Information:
Debian Release: bookworm/sid
  APT prefers unstable
  APT policy: (500, 'unstable')
Architecture: amd64 (x86_64)

Kernel: Linux 6.0.0-6-amd64 (SMP w/8 CPU threads; PREEMPT)
Locale: LANG=en_US.UTF-8, LC_CTYPE=en_US.UTF-8 (charmap=UTF-8), 
LANGUAGE=en_US:en
Shell: /bin/sh linked to /usr/bin/dash
Init: systemd (via /run/systemd/system)
LSM: AppArmor: enabled

debian-policy depends on no packages.

Versions of packages debian-policy recommends:
ii  libjs-sphinxdoc  5.3.0-3

Versions of packages debian-policy suggests:
pn  doc-base  

-- no debconf information
diff --git a/policy/ch-archive.rst b/policy/ch-archive.rst
index ab04261..15b9343 100644
--- a/policy/ch-archive.rst
+++ b/policy/ch-archive.rst
@@ -24,11 +24,11 @@ The aims of this are:
 
 The *main* archive area forms the *Debian distribution*.
 
-Packages in the other archive areas (``contrib``, ``non-free``) are not
-considered to be part of the Debian distribution, although we support
-their use and provide infrastructure for them (such as our bug-tracking
-system and mailing lists). This Debian Policy Manual applies to these
-packages as well.
+Packages in the other archive areas (``non-free-firmware``,
+``contrib``, ``non-free``) are not considered to be part of the Debian
+distribution, although we support their use and provide infrastructure
+for them (such as our bug-tracking system and mailing lists). This
+Debian Policy Manual applies to these packages as well.
 
 .. _s-dfsg:
 
@@ -130,6 +130,27 @@ In addition, the packages in *main*
 
 - must meet all policy requirements presented in this manual.
 
+.. _s-non-free-firmware:
+
+The non-free-firmware archive area
+~~
+
+The *non-free-firmware* archive area contains packages providing
+firmware needed to initialize, use or keep updated hardware required
+by our users, typically necessary for important functions to be
+available (i.e. wireless network connectivity) or for fixing security
+defects in hardware (i.e. CPU microcode updates). Packages in this
+archive may not comply with all of the policy requirements in this
+manual due to lack of source code availability, restrictions on
+modification or other limitations.
+
+Packages in *non-free-firmware*
+
+- must not be so buggy that we refuse to support them, and
+
+  - must meet all policy requiremens presented in this manual that it
+is possible for them to meet.
+
 .. _s-contrib:
 
 The contrib archive area
@@ -261,8 +282,8 @@ prohibited" and "distribution restricted".
 Sections
 
 
-The packages in the archive areas *main*, *contrib* and *non-free* are
-grouped further into *sections* to simplify handling.
+The packages in the archive areas *main*, *non-free-firmware*, *contrib*
+and *non-free* are grouped further into *sections* to simplify handling.
 
 The archive area and section for each package should be specified in the
 package's ``Section`` control record (see
@@ -272,8 +293,8 @@ the Debian distribution. The ``Section`` field should be of 
the form:
 
 -  *section* if the package is in the *main* archive area,
 
--  *area/section* if the package is in the *contrib* or *non-free*
-   archive areas.
+-  *area/section* if the package is in the *non-free-firmware*, *contrib*
+   or *non-free* archive areas.
 
 The Debian archive maintainers provide the authoritative list of
 sections. At present, they are: admin, cli-mono, comm, database, debug,