Hi,
Package: misdn-utils Version: 0.0.0+cvs20041018-4 Severity: serious
misdn-utils contains a utility "loadfirm", for loading firmware onto ISDN devices. Unless this firmware is Free Software with source, which did not appear to be the case after a large amount of searching, this utility should not be in Debian main.
This is a difficult case, which is why I CCed -devel. Basically, I don't see any point in removing it, as it would hurt users who need to upload firmware at no gain (since the tool and the kernel module it interfaces to are GPLed). You may argue about its uselessness as much as you like, it is basically packaged for completeness (the mISDN stack is heavily in flux, which is why there are no shared libraries and only few things based on it).
If, as the description states, users are highly unlikely to need the package, then this issue could be fixed simply by removing the misdn-utils binary package and removing the loadfirm source from the .orig.tar.gz . If users really do need the package, then it should be removed from the misdn-user .orig.tar.gz and placed in a separate source package targetted at contrib.
No. There is no reason to remove DFSG-free stuff from an .orig.tar.gz claiming DFSG reasons.
(If the firmware used by this tool really is Free Software, my apologies. However, in that case, the firmware still does not appear to be available in Debian.)
The tool is generic, hence I cannot make any assumptions on the freeness of any firmware that may be loaded with it once the mISDN stack reaches a non-beta state.
Simon
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