On Jo, 25 feb 21, 11:53:18, tomas@tuxteam.de wrote: > > No worries. Things happen -- and in this case you happened to step > onto a sticky issue which has no "nice" solution. The two extremes > > (a) Debian should be a free distribution. If you're holding a > Debian "CD" [1] on your hands, you should be safe trusting > that all the stuff in there is free to use, study, modify > and give to others > > (b) Debian should be welcoming to newbies, it should be easy > to install > > This is a point of conflict, and won't be solved as long as there > are hardware companies out there saying "my firmware is MINE and > you are not allowed to redistribute it" while at the same time > spreading this oh-too-valuable-stuff all over the Internets. It's more complicated than this. Debian is allowed distribute the firmware (otherwise it wouldn't be included in non-free or in the image), but the firmware doesn't satisfy one or more of the requirements in the Debian Free Software Guidelines (DFSG)[1]. Apparently some firmwares even would satisfy the DFSG (in theory), but the hardware accepts only firmware signed by the manufacturer, so Debian can't rebuild it from source. I'd say this is still progress (compared to not having the source at all). [1] https://www.debian.org/social_contract#guidelines Kind regards, Andrei -- http://wiki.debian.org/FAQsFromDebianUser
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