On Mar 27, Thomas Bushnell BSG <tb@becket.net> wrote: > > Maybe. But why won't you refute the arguments that are there? > I don't need to. What we are lacking is not those arguments, but the > key missing pieces: what freedoms do you want to insist on (as opposed > to the DFSG)? and why should we accept lesser freedoms for this one > class of software? You are showing again that bad case of selective reading... I answered to both questions in this thread. > > "Refusing to distribute binary firmwares does not help free software. You > > may choose between getting the firmware with your hardware on a flash > > EPROM chip or having your driver load it, but at the end of the day you > > will still use some software whose source code is not available. If > > removing binary firmwares from debian makes using free software harder > > for our user then it harms the free software cause." > This is like saying that people will use star office whether it's DFSG > free or not, so there is no reason to say "we won't distribute this > until it's DFSG free". In fact, people can and do make things free. Maybe eventually this will be true for firmwares too, but so far I have not seen any third party writing from scratch a non-trivial firmware without help from the hardware vendor. This is why the proposed exception is temporary, recognizing that things may change. > We should tell users: we are unable to support this hardware, because > we don't have the source. Among other things, we are unable to fix > security bugs in it. We are unable to fix security bugs in hardware with non-modifiable firmware and modifiable but permanently stored firmware too. Should we drop support for these devices too? > No. Why do you think we insist on the source for programs in general? > Why do we insist on the source for openoffice.org or emacs? Is it > just mindless? No. It's for good and worthy reasons. You need to > explain why those reasons somehow don't apply in the case of firmware. We tried, but you are just not listening... -- ciao, Marco
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