Re: on firmware (possible proposal)
Hi Peter,
As much as I respect the legitimacy of your proposal, I think it is overkill
to use a GR for that. Let me explain...
On Wed, Nov 12, 2008 at 12:14:10PM +0100, Peter Palfrader wrote:
> By excluding such firmware from Debian we exclude
> | users that require such devices from installing our operating system, or
> | make it unnecessarily hard for them.
This is not necessarily so. I believe that not excluding those users is
precisely the reason we have SC #4 and SC #5 (and it is hard to justify
those sections without this reason).
Though, it may be true incidentally that we're making it unnecessarily hard
for them. But there's nothing in our Social Contract that requires it to be
hard, and you don't need a GR to change that.
For example, if you want to install Debian on an NSLU, the only difficulty is
finding the unofficial D-I images that include non-free firmware. And even
that can be improved. They could be linked from the main website, and
integrated with our infrastructure, much like we do for "non-free", as long
as we make it clear they're not officially "Debian".
--
Robert Millan
The DRM opt-in fallacy: "Your data belongs to us. We will decide when (and
how) you may access your data; but nobody's threatening your freedom: we
still allow you to remove your data and not access it at all."
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