Re: binary firmware (Re: Processed: tagging 493925, tagging 494007, tagging 494009, tagging 494010)
On Wed, Aug 06, 2008 at 07:56:01PM +0200, Frederik Schueler wrote:
> Hi,
>
> > Mine is that it should be useful to people fully committed to freedom who
> > would rather trash their hardware than run a propietary driver
>
> that might depend on hom much you paid for that hardware, and on whether
> you have the choice to not use it, because there might not be anything
> comparable not non-free.
There is always choice... but IMHO the question here is how can we support
users independently of what they choose. They're entitled to their decisions.
> > So my conclussion is that untill we can fix the problems, the compromise that
> > would fall within the letter and spirit of the SC is to provide two versions
> > of the package to our users. One that is 100% free and one that is, at least,
> > legally distributable.
>
> 1. We removed all not distributable blobs during the last freeze.
Good to know.
> 2. The remaining ones are either distributable in main, or in the
> firmware-nonfree package.
>
> If you think one of the remaining firmwares is licensed in a way not
> acceptable for main, please send in tested patches against the driver in
> linux-2.6 fixing it to request the firmware from userland, and the
> needed patch for firmware-nonfree with the corresponding counterpart.
I can try to help on this, once I'm finished with properly inspecting / bug
filing all the problems I found (I'm pretty busy with other things right now,
but I expect I will have more time by then).
Nevertheless, I have no experience with the userland loader, so first of all
I'd like to hear your evaluation on how cumbersome is the process of producing
those patches and (most specialy!) finding the hardware to test them.
My concern here is different (less important IMO, but still significant): Would
the release have to be delayed in case this approach is taken?
--
Robert Millan
The DRM opt-in fallacy: "Your data belongs to us. We will decide when (and
how) you may access your data; but nobody's threatening your freedom: we
still allow you to remove your data and not access it at all."
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