Re: Making Debian available

["jrb3-beckenbach.us" <jrb3@beckenbach.us>]

Hello, Debian world!

[larval contributor delurking]

On 18 Jan 2021, at 11:29, Steve McIntyre <steve@einval.com> wrote:

There's a major difference here - do we want Debian's *official* media
to include non-free stuff? We've had this discussion a few times,
including in person back at DC15 at least. Back then, the overwhelming
response was *no*. We can change that, but it's not something to do
lightly.

I might be reading this in, but I'm hearing this as asking "Debian's [one] official [install] media".

That prompts reframing your question as "Does Debian want no Debian official install media to contain non-free stuff".

If yes, then no installs happen on hardware requiring a non-free blob, and Debian knowingly loses potential install-base.

(I wonder if we've data on how much this actually happens ....)

If no, then have official "free-only" install-media and official "has non-free" install-media, available side-by-side.

Suggest people use the former, and fall back to the latter if their hardware forces that.

(I speculate that realizing this might require some sort of proposal and/or policy decision?)

[relurking]

Thanks for suffering with my lack of clarity!

Joseph

——

Joseph Beckenbach