Re: call for seconds: on firmware
On Tue, Nov 18 2008, Martin Wuertele wrote:
> * Manoj Srivastava <srivasta@debian.org> [2008-11-18 14:47]:
>
>> On Tue, Nov 18 2008, Martin Wuertele wrote:
>>
>> > * Lars Wirzenius <liw@liw.fi> [2008-11-17 19:31]:
>> >
>> >> (Quote attribution elided on purpose.)
>> >> > Stop your FUD.
>> >> >
>> >> > The Release Team isn't violating the Social Contract.
>> >>
>> >> It is my opinion that releasing lenny with known DFSG violations is a
>> >> violation of the Social Contract, on the part of the project as a whole,
>> >> regardless of which individuals are making the decisions.
>> >
>> > Did you ever read SC #4? It's a violation of the SC to not provide our
>> > users with a usable system.
>>
>> I do not think you have read 4 and 5 together.
>>
>> 4. Our priorities are our users and free software
>
> [..]
>
>> 5. Works that do not meet our free software standards
>
> [..]
>
>> So, SC says we know our users might need non-free crap, and we
>> shall give it to them, in `contrib' and `non-free' areas in our
>> archive.
>
> That still doesn't conclude that releasing Lenny with propable issues
> violates the SC. As already pointed out why should hardware that loads
> firmware blobs from flash be treated different than hardware loading
> the blob from a filesystem. One could conclude that even Intel CPUs
> are non-free while UltraSparcs are DFSG-free placing amd64 and i386
> outside main.
It is no different. Debian should be distributing neither. We
should not get in the way of the user getting their non-free crap from
elsewhere (even embedded in their hardware, or on a usb stick from
non-free), but neither should be in Debian main. If you find hardware
with embedded software in Debian main, please let me know. I know
people who relish downloadable hardware, it feeds their SCI-FI fetishes.
manoj
--
He who takes nothing in the world that has not been given him, long or
short, big or small, attractive or that is what I call a brahmin. 409
Manoj Srivastava <srivasta@debian.org> <http://www.debian.org/~srivasta/>
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