[quote]
That is those having problems with wireless cards like: braodcom, intel,
ralink, realtek, etc or Nvidia/ATI. It is really simple to fix. Replace the
card (where possible) and/or don't buy further hardware dependent on non-free
drivers/firmware. Users have to demand freedom friendly hardware if things
are going to improve.[/quote]
What you wrote makes perfectly sense. Unfortunately there are sometimes no
options left. If you run an AMD-based motherboard nowadays, I can bet you
will have a hard time to find a graphic adapter which is both performant in
terms of 3D and runs without non-free stuff.
ATI provides good performance with the radeon driver but relies on non-free
microcode. NVidia provides reasonable performance with the most recent
version of Noveau but it will take some time (may be a year) until Trisquel
will include this version. Intel does not provide PCIe graphic adapters
AFAIK.
The other issue I see with omitting firmware files:
For a lot of areas there simply are no devices without dependency on firmware
files. At least not in the lower price segments.
And sometimes alternatives can be even more questionable in regard to general
freedom of the user even if they seem to fulfill the requirents of free
software in the first place.
Hardware companies support what promises profit. Money makes the world go
round. Unfortunately it is still is that simple :-/
Linux users have a very low market share. I bet under the desktop users we
are even way behind the Mac folks. Now lets imagine this tremendiously big
percentage of users stands up and asks for free devices with open standards
and no non-free stuff used, what do you think they get ? I bet nothing beside
a big laugh !
Linux users should be happy to have somewhat working 3D support from the
vendors, even if not open-source / free until there are open-source options
for 3D acceleration (Noveau, radeon).
While the free software movement and the work on Trisquel is honorable, all
the Linux users out there should also evaluate their possibilities to change
things in a realistic way.
