Re: Free Software DVD contains non-free firmware
On Tue, Aug 29, 2023 at 09:53:07AM -0700, Birzhan Amirov wrote:
> > If you actually want the level of purity-over-practicality that your mail
> suggests ... that is effectively an abuse of our users
> **Just pointing out the fact that at the time of 11.6.0 you didn't have a
> problem releasing both free and non-free version.**
> Important part ^
>
Can I remind you that Debian has an open process for this and for any changes.
We *did* have a problem: people couldn't install Debian straightforwardly
without firmware. It is definitely true that this adversely affected some
visually impaired users who were entirely unable to use the speech installer
without Intel sound firmware.
That is one of the justifications for the full GR last year which also changed
the Debian Social contract, accordingly.
> Also, it feels like in your reply you're trying to hide or obfuscate this
> fact, probably because if this fact is not mentioned, your reasoning starts
> to work (e.g. I quote: "that is
> effectively an abuse of our users").
>
Can I respectfully suggest that you acquaint yourself with more of the
history around these changes: debian-vote lists for August and September 2022
are probably good places to start and corresponding debian-devel discussions.
> You've provided more questionable reasoning in your previous emails,
> responding to which I find grossly counterproductive.
>
Can I request you to be constructive rather than critical: the Code of Conduct
applies here as elsewhere.
> Just for the record, let me explain you what I mean exactly, because it
> might not have penetrated.
> What I did - is read the DFSG, and IMO it follows from this document that
> you should have at least one official release that doesn't have
> closed-source, just as you did at the time of 11.6.0.
> And let me break it down for you, the way I'm reading it:
>
The Project as a whole chose to change the process: the code still exists
to generate fully free images. For practical reasons, the release team
chooses not to: that would involve reverting to double the amount of testing
for questionable benefit overall, amongst other things.
> 1. Debian <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Debian> Project uses *Debian Free
> Software Guidelines* (*DFSG*) to determine whether a software license is a free
> software license <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_software_license>;
> 2. This, in turn is used to determine whether a piece of software can be
> included in Debian.
> 3. and guideline #2 is: Inclusion of source code.
> IMO a natural conclusion from this guideline is that if you get a release
> of Debian, it should be all open source software.
>
> Your reply to that was: "The non-free firmware is still not part of Debian
> proper, we just happen to distribute it alongside Debian".
I refer you to the comprehensive discussions above around these issues: Phil
is correct here and the Social Contract modification makes this clear.
> And that's fine if you happen to distribute anything alongside whatever you
> want, and you're not called Official Debian.
> The only problem with that is for some reason now you still call those
> releases "Official distributions" and don't provide pure free software
> releases anymore.
> (Memo: earlier releases with non-free software were called "Unofficial").
> But honestly, call them what you want, as long as you provide a pure free
> software release, just like you should, judging from your own manifesto.
>
> You might have stronger reasons than those you've officially acknowledged
> to compromise your releases with code that you can't vouch for and you can
> deny knowledge of what it does exactly; but the way I see it - that's your
> issue and I'm not going to speculate or blame.
The tone you employ suggests that you're "blaming" the Project as a whole
for doing something you disagree with.
> Maybe at some point somebody more responsible will restart proper releases
> in accordance with DFSG, I'll keep my hope for that.
As one of those closely involved in the Debian images release process, I would
strongly suggest that the team is not irresponsible - but I would say that
wouldn't I.
This issue was also fully discussed at the Debconf in Kossovo,
for example.
https://meetings-archive.debian.net/pub/debian-meetings/2022/DebConf22/debconf22-199-fixing-the-firmware-mess.webm
https://meetings-archive.debian.net/pub/debian-meetings/2022/DebConf22/debconf22-294-debian-installer-and-images-team-bof.webm
Given that the sponsor of the GR has been involved with image releases
almost from the beginning of the Project, you might also wish to
reconsider your statement from a position of greater factual knowledge after
due consideration.
> And given the quality of your demonstrated argument and reasoning I intend
> to discontinue my participation in this thread, for the purpose of saving
> my time for more productive activities.
>
> Again, thank you for 11.6.0 and earlier releases.
>
> Regards, John.
>
With every good wish, as ever,
Andy Cater
[amacater@debian.org]
>
>
>
>
>
>
> On Tue, Aug 29, 2023 at 1:04 AM Philip Hands <phil@hands.com> wrote:
>
> > Birzhan Amirov <john.amirov.83@gmail.com> writes:
> >
> > > I just want to use this chance to thank the entire Debian Images Team for
> > > many years of releasing DVDs that actually had 0 bytes of closed-source
> > > code.
> > > I have been following the project since "Jessie", and always admired your
> > > strict and puristic approach.
> > > Allow me to wish you the best of luck growing your user base.
> >
> > If you actually want the level of purity-over-practicality that your
> > mail suggests, people have been providing it long before you took an
> > interest in Debian -- the FSF keeps a list of candidates:
> >
> > https://www.gnu.org/distros/free-distros.html
> >
> > [ Oh, I see gNewSense is dead :-/ , and Trisquel is now (... erm, since
> > 2007 ... obviously wasn't paying attention) based on Ubuntu, which
> > doesn't seem like the most obvious way of doing that, but whatever. ]
> >
> > and while the FSF now criticises Debian primarily on the basis of
> > this (IMO rather minor) change in installer policy:
> >
> > https://www.gnu.org/distros/common-distros.html#Debian
> >
> > they've always been critical of Debian, for pretty-much exactly the same
> > reason as this policy change occurred -- a willingness to let users
> > obtain a working Debian system by providing them with the chance to get
> > hold of non-free software as well as Debian, if that's their only choice:
> >
> >
> > https://web.archive.org/web/20220211101539/https://www.gnu.org/distros/common-distros.html#Debian
> >
> > so if you were expecting FSF levels of purity[1], then you probably haven't
> > been paying close enough attention from the start.
> >
> > While looking at the FSF site, I noticed this somewhat amusing method
> > for reconciling these two stances:
> >
> > https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/install-fest-devil.html
> >
> > but I'm afraid I've no idea how one could implement something equivalent
> > in the medium of downloadable images.
> >
> > I'm sure if we had a tool for converting "+firmware" to "pure" images,
> > we'd be publishing the checksums to the "pure" result, and making them
> > easy to get for those that prefer them, but nobody's yet produced such a
> > tool.
> >
> > It really just needs someone to care enough to maintain it (or pay
> > someone else to do so).
> >
> > I don't think we'd go back to the situation where we somehow hide the
> > "+firmware" images though, because we've acknowledged that that is
> > effectively an abuse of our users, so I would expect the FSF to be
> > almost exactly as grumpy even if "pure" images were easily available.
> >
> > Cheers, Phil.
> >
> > [1] of course, the FSF distributes documentation that is non-free by
> > Debian's definition (in the form of GFDL-with-immutable-sections), so
> > other forms of purity are also available :-)
> > --
> > Philip Hands -- https://hands.com/~phil
> >
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