Re: Firmware - what are we going to do about it?
Hi,
On Tue, 2022-04-19 at 01:27 +0100, Steve McIntyre wrote:
> TL;DR: firmware support in Debian sucks, and we need to change this.
Thanks for proposing changes here.
> 5. We could split out the non-free firmware packages into a new
> non-free-firmware component in the archive [...]
> What would I choose to do? My personal preference would be to go with
> option 5: split the non-free firmware into a special new component
> and include that on official media.
Having proposed that in the past that is also my preference (unless
someone should come up with a better idea).
> Does that make me a sellout? I don't think so.
I simply see this as a change how non-free software is delivered. To
me, it doesn't make much difference whether non-free firmware comes
preinstalled on a ROM or is loaded by the kernel as a blob and just
pushed to the device: the firmware is the same; it doesn't become more
or less free depending how it is loaded.
Users just /see/ more easily that their device uses non-free firmware
if the kernel states it loads it / is visible in the filesystem.
(This assumes that all firmware we include is at least freely
redistributable and licenses not specific to Debian, but I think that
is the case. Maybe we should make that an explicit requirement for
firmware in non-free-firmware.)
Ansgar
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