Re: non-free but distributable packages and kernel firmware

[Michael Poole <mdpoole@troilus.org>]

Sven Luther writes:

> Hello,
>
> In the wake of the discussion about solving the murky non-free binary firmware
> blobs in our linux kernel issue, there was a proposition to split out the
> firmware blobs from the main drivers, and distribute them in a separate but
> canonical place from ftp.kernel.org.
>
> As thus i was wondering if, together with the volatile effort, it would not be
> time for us to split the non-free archive into two parts, namely :
>
>   1) non-free-but-freely-distributable
>
>   Which would hold all the files which are freely distributable, but fail one
>   of the freely modificable criterias of the DFSG.
>
>   2) rest of non-free
>
>   Which would include all but the ones in the first part, and impose some
>   furter restriction on distribution.

This has the strong smell of ranking some DFSG criteria above others
in importance.  If you want this kind of distinction, I think a less
discriminatory way would be to flag (internally or on a central web
site somewhere) each package in non-free according to which parts of
DFSG it fails.

Michael Poole