Re: more evil firmwares found
Scripsit Martin Loschwitz <madkiss@debian.org>
> On Mon, Apr 12, 2004 at 03:54:21PM +0100, Henning Makholm wrote:
> > Scripsit Norbert Tretkowski <tretkowski@inittab.de>
> > > Thus Debian shouldn't run on hardware which requires non-free binary
> > > firmware?
> > False. We have nothing against people running non-free software on
> > their machines, and we explicitly pledge to support those people.
> May I remind you of the social contract, article 4?
Why, certainly...
> Actually, if we remove all those drivers from kernel which need
> binary firmware files,
Please read my messages again. I am arguing that the drivers
themselves do *not* need to be removed from the kernel. The non-free
firmware itself cannot be distributed in main, but there should be
nothing against having a kernel in main with the *capacity* to load
non-free firmware.
> _If *this*_ is what you call "Our Priorities are Our Users",
> there's a strong disagreement between the two of us ...
Our priorities are also free software, and we quite explicitly promise
that main will include no non-free software. Do you propose that users
who rely on that promise is worth less than users who buy hardware for
which there are no free drivers?
> As member of the Debian Desktop Subproject, it is my strong believe that
> in order to achieve the social contract, we do not have a choice other
> than keeping all those drivers in the kernel.
What about the part of the social contract that promises that mail
will remain 100% free?
> > What we should not do is distribute the non-free firmware in the
> > archive where we promise not to distribute non-free software.
> What we should not do is to punish users for wanting to use Debian with
> throwing drivers they *need* away.
Keeping our promises does not equal punishing any users.
--
Henning Makholm "The practical reason for continuing our
system is the same as the practical reason
for continuing anything: It works satisfactorily."
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