Re: Proposal - Deferment of Changes from GR 2004-003
On Fri, 30 Apr 2004, Nathanael Nerode wrote:
> > I fully agree: the firmware is a evil, proprietary code. But it is always
> > true: the fact that you load it on startup in the remote hardware, or the
> > fact that it already exists in ROM, doesn't change anything.
> Well, except that it changes it from hardware to software or vice versa.
Firmware in an embedded static RAM is still [non-free] software.
Strictly speaking, we have drivers in main that depend on non-free
embedded software to run. If the (firmware embedded in) hardware is not
there (that is, the hardware is not connected at all), the driver will
fail to load (insmod will probably throw an obscrure error message :) ).
This case if frequent nowadays, and is not a problem AFAIK.
Making a tolerence -- or an exception -- for firmwares which purpose is to
be transfered in a remote hardware is then IMHO not an abolute form of
perversion.
And again, this matter was raised previously in the lkml and folks such as
Linus believed that it was ok.
But I reckon that considering the DFSG can change this point of view.
What we must do is then making a choice:
1- consider all these blobs as non-free, leading to make debian
incompatible with many hardwares (there is no "non-free" install cd
AFAIK), not to mention other problems (such as ps/doc/fonts..)
1- consider all these blobs as free, which might be difficult to do
considering the DFSG (and especially ther new one (..) )
3- making an exception or a tolerence for these matters, knowing that
these pieces of binary code are not free
But do not forget that the solution 1 will harm some of our beloved users.
As Osamu Aoki said, we also have to consider pragmatism.
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