Re: Firmware - what are we going to do about it?
Hi,
On 4/20/22 12:14 PM, Jonathan Dowland wrote:
However I think we should continue to produce install media without
non-free components, at least for a period of time after making the
switch (as another reply said, perhaps 1-2 releases and review). It
feels like me too big a step to take to stop producing DFSG-compliant
media.
Indeed that might be a rather big step, especially in light of the
Debian Social Contract that begins with
1. Debian will remain 100% free
We provide the guidelines that we use to determine if a work is
"free" in the document entitled "The Debian Free Software
Guidelines". We promise that the Debian system and all its components
will be free according to these guidelines. We will support people
who create or use both free and non-free works on Debian. We will
never make the system require the use of a non-free component.
If we wanted to have an "official" installer containing non-free
components, I believe we would need to have a GR with a 3:1
supermajority to change a foundation document, and then explain that
decision in a press release.
Debian has always understood that (end) users sometimes need to use
non-free components, but at the same time also worked towards reducing
our users' dependence on them -- because that is how we've traditionally
resolved conflicts between our two priorities, our users and free software.
In my opinion, it is quite defeatist to accept that some companies will
never release free firmware or at least the documentation to allow
others to do so; the same was said about drivers twenty years ago, and
now we are in the rather luxurious position that there are rather few
companies with binary-only drivers, and users are well aware that
support for these will be spotty and Debian is not to be blamed for any
problems.
I'd like to reach the same state for firmware.
From simply a principle perspective, that's the "pure" aim
of the project. If we continue to provide it but not on the default
path then we might be able to gather some information on how popular
or useful it is (how many downloads it attracts; or what kind of
hardware configurations it can actually be used on; perhaps cross-
referencing it with popcon or installation-report data)
The popcon result is "the majority of users will use the default."
When popcon was introduced, its purpose was to order installation media,
and that's what it's good for, but it can't tell us what the default
should be (otherwise I'd be questioning the decision to make systemd the
default while the majority of systems were running sysvinit).
Simon
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