Re: ANNOUNCEMENT: Intel processor microcode security update

[Henrique de Moraes Holschuh <hmh@debian.org>]

On Wed, 04 Sep 2013, David Guntner wrote:
> used because of the scale of how many CPUs are affected.  It's
> "non-free" in the sense that they hold patents, etc., on the code that
> restrict how you can use it and so on.

It is non-free because of the license attached to the microcode
distribution, not because of patents.

http://ftp-master.metadata.debian.org/changelogs/non-free/i/intel-microcode/unstable_copyright

Since that license is not compatible with the DFSG, the package goes in
non-free and not in Debian main.

http://www.debian.org/social_contract.html

-- 
  "One disk to rule them all, One disk to find them. One disk to bring
  them all and in the darkness grind them. In the Land of Redmond
  where the shadows lie." -- The Silicon Valley Tarot
  Henrique Holschuh