Re: Proposal - Amendment - allow hardware support from non-free into the debian system
On Tue, Sep 05, 2006 at 01:25:44PM +0100, MJ Ray wrote:
> So, the full position statement proposed is:
> ========================================================================
>
> THE DEBIAN PROJECT:
> 1. reaffirms its dedication to providing a 100% free system to
> our users according to our Social Contract and the DFSG; and
> 2. encourages licensors of all works to make those works
> available not only under licenses that permit modification, but also in
> forms that make such modifications practical; and
> 3. as a special exception to help users who have vital hardware
> without free software drivers yet, the Debian system and official CD
> images may include hardware-support packages from the admin section of
> the non-free archive area which conform to all Debian Free Software
> Guidelines except guideline 2 (Source Code), or an archive section/area
> with equivalent requirements.
>
>
>========================================================================
I've tried to consolidate all the little "I would second this if" and
remarks that people made (and I agree to), but that MJ Ray didn't
outright reject. How about something like that? Would in particular MJ
Raj, Sven Luther, Julien Blache agree with this?
Changes:
- remove "vital" (already accepted by MJ Ray)
- don't declare firmware in non-free to be part of the Debian system,
just that installation media may include it
- don't speak about "non-free drivers", but only _firmware_. This so
that we don't create an unwanted loophole that would permit
... non-free drivers that run on the "main" CPU in the kernel.
- My pet peeve (but feel free to make an amended amendment proposal
without it): if there is a free software, but it is significantly
less featurefull or broken, we may include the non-free one.
========================================================================
THE DEBIAN PROJECT:
1. reaffirms its dedication to providing a 100% free system to
our users according to our Social Contract and the DFSG; and
2. encourages licensors of all works to make those works available
not only under licenses that permit modification, but also in
forms that make such modifications practical; and
3. as a special exception to help users who have hardware for which
no complete functioning free firmware is available, the Debian
installation media images may include selected firmware from
non-free archive, which conforms to all Debian Free Software
Guidelines except guideline 2 (Source Code).
========================================================================
--
Lionel
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