Firmware handling in Debian

[Simon Huggins <huggie@earth.li>]

On Thu, Mar 31, 2005 at 03:12:00PM -0800, Thomas Bushnell BSG wrote:
> Matthew Garrett <mgarrett@chiark.greenend.org.uk> writes:
> > 1) Distribute the non-free firmware. Our users are happy.
> > 2) Don't distribute the non-free firmware. Our users either download the
> > non-free firmware from elsewhere (bad) or replace their hardware with
> > parts that have the non-free firmware in flash (worse - no improvement
> > in freedom, and we've made them waste money and material)
> I'm ok with (1), provided we do it in the non-free archive.

Right but the installer needs firmware at times.  So if we're shipping
it in non-free we need to manage this there.  There was talk about a new
section called firmware or similar which would mean users that wanted
just firmware wouldn't have non-free listed in their sources.list and
accidentally stray to the Dark Side.

This clearly needs some thought though and cooperation from the
installer people and packages which depend on firmware (the kernel,
speedtouch things like that).

- Where should firmware ship?  non-free?  A new, separate section?
- How should we make it available at install time when necessary?
  (think installing via a USB ADSL modem like a speedtouch)

Simon.

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