Re: LCC and blobs
[EMAIL PROTECTED] (Marco d'Itri) writes: > On Dec 18, Brian Thomas Sniffen <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > >> No. It's a driver for an ipw 2100; it has an ipw2100 and can't drive >> it. It's not functional -- it failed to power on the adapter. In the > No: it's reporting that the card did activate correctly, but it's not > the driver's fault. The driver is complete and does not lack anything > needed to operate the device. ...except the firmware? -- Brian Sniffen [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: LCC and blobs
Måns Rullgård <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: > Brian Thomas Sniffen <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: > >> It doesn't matter if the manufacturer includes the CD. If I buy the >> card on eBay, the original owner may not have a license to >> redistribute the firmware to me. > > That's a purely hypothetical situation. Show me a case where someone > has been convicted for selling used hardware, and including the driver > CD. Um. It's not a crime, at least not where I live. But show me a case where somebody has paid a penalty for distributing GPL'd software without source, or lost a court case over it? Oh, but Debian follows the license there... why? Because Debian is dedicated to free software. Similarly, we respect the licenses on non-free software. If the firmware were free, Debian could ship it *and* the driver. Since it's not, we can't assume end users have it. To do so, we must require them to accede to provisions of third parties' licenses in order to make use of Debian software. -Brian -- Brian Sniffen [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: LCC and blobs
Brian Thomas Sniffen <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: > It doesn't matter if the manufacturer includes the CD. If I buy the > card on eBay, the original owner may not have a license to > redistribute the firmware to me. That's a purely hypothetical situation. Show me a case where someone has been convicted for selling used hardware, and including the driver CD. >> Yes, I'm deliberately being a little extreme here, but I see no >> fundamental difference between requiring the user to possess some data >> and requiring the user to possess a physical object. > > One is software, which Debian could ship, and the other is hardware, > which Debian cannot ship. Software has no inherent limitation on its > duplication and distribution -- copying bits and shipping them about > is essentially free. Duplicating and distributing objects is hard > enough to be the basis of our economy. > > Free software, free data, are inherently different and useful concepts > without needing to free all hardware. As I said, lots of software requires any potential user to have some knowledge about something (I previously mentioned signal processing as an example). To my knowledge, Debian does not distribute any free books on signal processing, even though it could, if such literature existed. Does this prevent signal processing toolkits from going into main? I see gnucap (GNU Circuit Analysis package) is in main. This is useless for anyone without some knowledge of electronic circuits, and Debian does not include any books on that subject, so the gnucap package depends on non-free "data". Does this mean that gnucap must be moved to "contrib"? -- Måns Rullgård [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: LCC and blobs
On Dec 18, Glenn Maynard <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > No, because (as has been said already) the existance of cases where you need > non-free stuff isn't the issue; the issue is whether there exist cases where > you don't. If nobody can use the software without needing non-free data, the > software is (at best) contrib. If some people can use it without that data, Just about every driver "needs" some software stored in flash EEPROM chips in your computer. > > Suppose some piece of hardware had a Compact Flash reader, and came > > with a Compact Flash card containing firmware necessary for the > > hardware to run. Would this also be non-free? > I believe software that only works with this reader would go in contrib, > if that's what you mean, unless the data on that card was Free itself. > It's a dependency on non-free software. (It's not the same as having > the firmware stored in flash memory on a device, since removable devices > are expected to be removed, overwritten, or lost; where I'd call a device > with a hosed flash "broken". (The former I'd sell on eBay as "drive Let's suppose that this compact flash card were soldered to a PCI compact flash adapter. Would this still be software and an element of the debian dependecy chain? -- ciao, | Marco | [9901 riFoIPUHY2X7A] signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Re: LCC and blobs
On Dec 18, Brian Thomas Sniffen <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > No. It's a driver for an ipw 2100; it has an ipw2100 and can't drive > it. It's not functional -- it failed to power on the adapter. In the No: it's reporting that the card did activate correctly, but it's not the driver's fault. The driver is complete and does not lack anything needed to operate the device. > This certainly doesn't make Debian uninstallable. All the drivers in > question can move to contrib. It just ensures that Debian ships only > free software in Debian main. Packages in contrib are not part of debian. It's funny that after some people tried hard to remove any trace of non-free software from the debian archive now there is the concrete risk that using contrib and non-free will be mandatory for many users. -- ciao, | Marco | [9900 stMOs23QwadkU] signature.asc Description: Digital signature
ACCOUNT DEACTIVATED
This account is no longer active. Thus, your mail regarding "[PMX:VIRUS] Re:" will not be received.
Bu'y Cia"lis softtabs Online For Less
New ClALlS softtabs = lNSTANT R0CKHARD ERECTl0NS Simply disolve HALF A PlLL under your tongue 10min before action, for results that last all weekend. Normal retail is $19/PlLL 0rder from us today at the price of $3.67 not interested(0pt-0ut)
CNEL推出广告服务大优惠 14:2:22:727
通栏广告 标题广告 预知详情：http://www.cnelc.com/ad/3.htm 中国工业电器网广告投放报价单 服务内容 制作效果 大小尺寸 广告投放时间及报价（元） 申 请 1个月 3个月 6个月 1年 首页 通栏广告 平面 768×35 5000 14000 26000 5 申 请 标题广告 平面 100×40 1000 2800 5200 1 申 请 栏目首页 通栏广告 平面、动画 768×35 1000 2800 5200 1 申 请 标题广告 平面、动画 100×40 300 800 1700 3200 申 请 区域市场栏目 通栏广告 平面 768×35 800 2200 4000 7500 申 请 标题广告 平面、动画 100×40 300 800 1700 3200 申 请 专业市场栏目 通栏广告 平面、动画 768×35 800 2200 4000 7500 申 请 标题广告 平面、动画 100×40 300 800 1700 3200 申 请 联系方式: 中国工业电器网地址：上海市天目中路538号北苑大厦13楼 电话：021-33031114技术中心：021-33036114 传真：021-63532355 邮编：200070网址：www.cnelc.com 销售部 [EMAIL PROTECTED]联系人：陈波 浙江温州地区业务联系:地址：浙江省乐清市北白象镇开创路130号电话：0577-62999758 手机：13506777309联系人：郑成光 公司汇款资料:公司全称：上海易电网络科技有限公司开户行：农行闸北支天目所帐号： 033623-08016162886
