Am 2007-11-17 17:13:41, schrieb Bruce Sass:
> The way I see it:
>
> - if all HP printers required non-free software which a user was
> required to download then HPLIP would already be in contrib because
> it would be useless without additional proprietary software
I have 5 HP Printers (3 Laser and two DeskJet)
which have never used proprietary drivers...
> - if all HP printers shipped with all drivers and firmware they
> require then HPLIP would be in main because no other software would be
> necessary for HPLIP to be fully functional, regardless of whether the
> drivers and firmware were proprietary or not
OK, when I have bought the Printers, I have had Floppies of a Mini-CD to
install there Driver-Stuff. And I had copied some ppd (???) stuff to
get ONE of my Laser-Printer running under Linux.
So this mean, IF you have bought a HP-Printer, you have gotten Floppies
or a CD with the original HP-Drivers and this mean, Debian CAN
distribute such prnter definitions or hpow they are called..
> - if HP shipped Linux drivers and firmare with the printers they would
> still need to provide an update mechanism and Debian would be pressured
> to package it
So better use an autodownloader for the updates BUT let it not start
automaticaly. Only on EXPLICIT user request.
> or is it a convenience function which makes life easier for everyone
> (users have the nicest possible experience, no extra work or packages
> for Debian, HP gets the control they want), and ripping it out could
> be construed as unnecessarily hampering a users right to use whatever
> software the want regardless of its freeness (which would violate the
> Social Contract)?
Then I have the question: "Why have they bought THIS printer, which
works only with NON-FREE software?"
If I have bought the printer, I have already a legal license to use
the proprietary driver and I think, the installer should be support
downloading the stuff from the Internet or be able, to look on the
CD distributet with the printer to get the driver...
But I think, Debian should ask HP for a legal distribution license.
> If it is a thin-edge then we may as well just put HPLIP into contrib
> and save ourselves a bunch of work in the long run.
Agreed.
> If the convenience of having an update mechanism included in software
> providing more functionality is great enough then Debian should do the
> short term work and come up with some guidelines with respect to: how
> much functionality is needed for the software to be considered more
> than just an installer, and what kind of functionality the non-free
> blob being managed is allowed to contain.
>
> If it is deemed desirable to have HPLIP in main but undesirable for it
> to manage non-free blobs of any description the offending code should
> be ripped out of HPLIP and packaged for inclusion in non-free. However,
> I think this route pretty much guarantees the maximum amount of work in
> both the short term and long run because we would need to create and
> maintain a fork of HPLIP.
I think, this is very undesired...
Thanks, Greetings and nice Day
Michelle Konzack
Tamay Dogan Network
Open Hardware Developer
Debian GNU/Linux Consultant
--
Linux-User #280138 with the Linux Counter, http://counter.li.org/
##################### Debian GNU/Linux Consultant #####################
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