Re: Debian Stretch new user report (vs Linux Mint)
On 05.12.2017 00:11, Adam Borowski wrote:
> How exactly firmware is not software?
> We may take a concession and offer non-free or parts of non-free more
> prominently (as it's needed on modern x86, all wifi cards I've seen, etc),
> but let's not declare that non-software.
>
> Thus, until the situation improves:
> * let's make the non-free iso download more obvious
> * explain why it's bad. No quotes from Stallman -- they're opaque to most
> users, quotes from Linus would be better.
>
> On the other hand, there's only 297 non-free packages in Debian, thus I
> don't see a benefit in splitting that further. Most of it is firmware or
> docs with unmodifiable parts anyway.
>
>
> Meow!
And that's exactly the point - non-free is non-free is non-free. And
will ever be. So - there is nothing like 'good' non-free versus 'bad'
non-free. For which reason ever (sources not available, license things,
etc. pp.) all non-free things will be non-free. There is no distinction
- and it will be sufficient to put some firmware on an iso and name that
iso 'non-free' - with all the things said above. The only real question
in this context is: Is that piece of non-free software distributable or
not? If so, it might be shipped.
This step will help some free software also a lot - best example is the
radeon driver - the driver is free and usable, but depend on a non-free
firmware. And i also see no bad things in delivering two images - the
free and the non-free one - it would be nuts to put away the efforts
that was needed to create the free ones. And for a stronger user
experience there should be a script remove-non-free on the iso - the
script or better the command should be promoted too:
apt purge $(vrms -s)
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