Michał Masłowski:
As long as the firmware does not have to be loaded/can't be updated we should
be OK. The problem is non-free firmware in the BIOS CAN be updated. Some
printers require the uploading of non-free firmware from the PC. We don't
sell those printers. If we did they wouldn't be compatible with Trisquel and
other free software distributions.
Distributions which include non-free software though might be compatible with
some devices (for a while) that aren't compatible with free distributions.
There are all sorts of technical issues though related non-free software on
distributions which "support" it.
For ethical and technical reasons we avoid dependencies on non-free software.
Everything we sell works with Trisquel.
I'm aware of the yellow dot issue. We haven't investigated the yellow dot
issue though. It is probably a complex issue as we don't know for sure that
yellow dot free printers are privacy safe. It might happen at some point.
It's a problem that we would like to solve if at all possible. It is a little
difficult to resolve though when the selection of printers that we can offer
are so limited. We have to take into account that they are going to sell, are
profitable, and are compatible with free software. Right now there are only a
handful of printers that we can verify easily that would work in all these
respects. If we add yellow dots to the list... there may be zero. If I have
time I'll see if we can fix this issue to whatever extent currently possible.
I know EFF had/has a list of yellow dot printers. I don't know if it contains
a list of every current HP printer. I doubt it does. Without such a list it
makes the job nearly impossible.
