If your referring to Tails explicitly in regards to non-free firmware I think
there is some argument to be made of inclusion. Whether or not I agree with
doing it from an ethics perspective there is a logical argument (more so than
with a generic distribution I think) both to doing it and to not doing it
from a security perspective. The advantages to doing it is increased user
base which enhances the security/anonymity of the software. It is likely that
Tails doesn't have a sufficient user base otherwise to warrant calling it a
more secure solution otherwise. On the other hand including non-free firmware
also gives the user a false sense of security. The problem with excluding it
from a security perspective is that your still giving a false sense of
security because the user then thinks there is no non-free software in use on
the system. This isn't reality though. Reality is there is some non-free
microcode, a non-free BIOS, etc.
What would I do if I was in charge of the Tor project and/or Tails (even
without any connections to ThinkPenguin)? I'd definitely push relations with
ThinkPenguin as it is another aspect of improving security down the road. You
can't one day say “OK, now we want to be more secure, lets ditch non-free
firmware”. It has to start sooner, rather than later. If you started
promoting free software friendly hardware in a manor that made it easier to
obtain (right now I firmly believe that means ThinkPenguin) then there will
be more users later who can take advantage of a 100% free and more secure
version.
Do I think every user should have to buy new $40 USD device? My answer is
more along the lines of, they should be encouraged to, even if they don't
want to. Naturally I'd like to say 'no', but it's a question of freedom, so
I'm more inclined to say they aught to care enough to do so, especially when
they are going to be ultimately forced to do so because MS Windows/Apple
systems (and users of distributions which include non-free drivers/firmware)
are going to have to do it eventually anyway. And the $40 USD card has got
significantly better odds from us (being free software friendly) of being
useful down the road. That isn't the case for most hardware most users posses
(and where they would actually need to do this).
It's also pricier because there isn't enough demand. Right now ThinkPenguin
only taps a small fragment of the overall demand for even our most popular
products (wifi cards). If even a reasonable percentage of users bought a $40
wifi card the prices would fall dramatically, there would be a 100% free
software friendly laptop (probably even more than one), etc.
If we had 100% of the USB wifi adapter market for GNU/Linux users we would be
talking about 17 million USD at $44 USD per adapter /w the current margins.
Clearly prices would drop. Even if they didn't it would propel the market for
free software tablets, phones, laptops, and desktops. The net impact would be
huge.
