Re: NEW handling: About rejects, and kernels

[Hamish Moffatt <hamish@debian.org>]

On Sat, Mar 26, 2005 at 11:44:17PM -0800, Thomas Bushnell BSG wrote:
> One reason for the DFSG's modifiability and source requirements is to
> preserve our ability to fix things.  I see no reason why we shouldn't
> insist on that for firmware just as we do for openoffice.org.

You don't have that freedom now. Your PC is full of firmware that you
don't have source to, probably can't change and probably can't recompile
anyway. It's your motherboard BIOS, it's in your hard drive, SCSI
controller, SATA controller, video card, ADSL/cable modem, your CRT or 
LCD monitor and also your CPU.

Don't you want to modify the source code for those too?

I hear you saying "but Debian doesn't distribute that software so it's
OK". No need to bother repeating it. I don't see how it changes
anything; you still don't have the source code. But if it's in EEPROM or
FLASH on the device you just pretend it isn't there because it makes you
feel better.

Hamish
-- 
Hamish Moffatt VK3SB <hamish@debian.org> <hamish@cloud.net.au>