Re: non-free firmware: driver in main or contrib?

[Brian Thomas Sniffen <bts@alum.mit.edu>]

Matthew Garrett <mgarrett@chiark.greenend.org.uk> writes:

> Brian Thomas Sniffen <bts@alum.mit.edu> wrote:
>> Matthew Garrett <mgarrett@chiark.greenend.org.uk> writes:
>> 
>>> Regardless of whether this dependency is expressed in our package
>>> management system, most drivers depend on non-free firmware. 
>> 
>> They depend on the presence of appropriate and properly functioning
>> devices, which are typically implemented using non-free firmware.
>> That's very different.
>
> I have no interest whatsoever in having an argument about semantics.

What, you want to argue syntax?

> There's no interesting functional difference between these two things,
> except that in one case the driver has to make a call to load the
> firmware and in the other case it doesn't.

And that is a functional difference: in one case the owner of the
device who has downloaded some Debian software has to go get some
other software and load it onto his machine; in the other case he
doesn't.

So indeed, there's no difference but the difference that matters.

-Brian


-- 
Brian Sniffen                                       bts@alum.mit.edu