Re: Bug#285518: misdn-utils includes a firmware loader
On Thu, Dec 16, 2004 at 10:51:39AM +0100, Frank Küster wrote:
> When the issue of binary blobs in the kernel was first discussed here,
> if I'm not mistaken the proposed solution was to rewrite the respective
> drivers to be able to load the blob at runtime from "somewhere", and
> that somewhere would then be populated from non-free or an external
> source. And it was said that if the hardware device generally works
> without firmware loading, just with worse performance, or if most
> devices supported by the driver worked without, and just a minority
> depended upon it, then the driver (the kernel module or monolitic
> kernel) would be Free.
Just to be a little clearer: drivers that require non-free firmware,
but are under a Free license, are Free.
Software which is not Free always goes in non-free. Software that
is Free goes in either main or contrib.
The active question, here, is not whether these drivers are Free; we're
assuming they're Free, and asking whether they should go in main or
contrib due to the firmware being non-free.
--
Glenn Maynard
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