Re: NEW handling: About rejects, and kernels

[Thomas Bushnell BSG <tb@becket.net>]

Hamish Moffatt <hamish@debian.org> writes:

> 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.

Huh?  I'm not saying I pretend it isn't there.  Do I want to modify
the source code?  No, because there's nothing I could do with it if I
could. 

I'm saying "Debian doesn't distribute it."  Does that change anything?
Sure: it changes *what Debian distributes*.  

Is your principle the following?

"If software of class X is distributed sometimes burned into hardware,
then Debian should distribute other software of class X, even if it
isn't free, for different hardware."

But why?  Why not say: "Debian distributes only free software"?