Re: Proposal - Defer discussion about SC and firmware until after the Etchrelease

[Sven Luther <sven.luther@wanadoo.fr>]

On Thu, Sep 21, 2006 at 12:50:36AM +0200, Frans Pop wrote:
> On Tuesday 12 September 2006 05:59, ldoolitt@recycle.lbl.gov wrote:
> > > implementation of a solution for firmware/non-free drivers in d-i has
> > > been discussed but consensus was that there was not much point in
> > > working on it while there was no separation in the kernel;
> >
> > This is half-true.
> >
> > It is true that many high-profile drivers in the upstream kernel _still_
> > have their firmware mingled with the (often GPL'd) driver, and their
> > developers show resistance to treating that as a bug.
> >
> > But it is also true that the upstream kernel has used the
> > request_firmware() mechanism (for a subset of its drivers) for quite a
> > while.  As a random data point, the March 2, 2005 release of linux-2.6.11
> > included about 20 drivers that used that mechanism to load their
> > firmware.  So if the Debian project (kernel and d-i together) had
> > interest in supporting the separation, there were ample test-cases
> > available.
> 
> I'm sorry, but I don't see what your comments have to do with discussion 
> about implementation _in Debian Installer_. They are probably true for the 
> discussion about firmware separation in the kernel, but that was not my 
> point.

Without support for non-free module or firmware .udebs, there is no point in
doing the separation and move to non-free in the kernel, as this will hurt our
users.

Friendly,

Sven Luther