On 2022-08-18 20:58:21 +0100, Steve McIntyre wrote: > Hi a11! > > I'm proposing to change how we handle non-free firmware in > Debian. I've written about this a few times already this year [1, 2] > and I ran a session on the subject at DebConf [3]. > > TL;DR: The way we deal with (non-free) firmware in Debian isn't > great. For a long time we've got away without supporting and including > (non-free) firmware on Debian systems. We don't *want* to have to > provide (non-free) firmware to our users, and in an ideal world we > wouldn't need to. However, it's no longer a sensible path when trying > to support lots of common current hardware. Increasingly, modern > computers don't function fully without these firmware blobs. > > Since I started talking about this, Ansgar has already added dak > support for a new, separate non-free-firmware component - see > [4]. This makes part of my original proposal moot! More work is needed > yet to make use of this support, but it's started! :-) > > I believe that there is reasonably wide support for changing what we > do with non-free firmware. I see several possible paths forward, but > as I've stated previously I don't want to be making the decision > alone. I believe that the Debian project as a whole needs to make the > decision on which path is the correct one. > > I'm *not* going to propose full text for all the possible choices > here; as eloquently suggested by Russ [5], it's probably better to > leave it for other people to come up with the text of options that > they feel should also be on the ballot. > > So, I propose the following: > > ================================= > > We will include non-free firmware packages from the > "non-free-firmware" section of the Debian archive on our official > media (installer images and live images). The included firmware > binaries will *normally* be enabled by default where the system > determines that they are required, but where possible we will include > ways for users to disable this at boot (boot menu option, kernel > command line etc.). > > When the installer/live system is running we will provide information > to the user about what firmware has been loaded (both free and > non-free), and we will also store that information on the target > system such that users will be able to find it later. The target > system will *also* be configured to use the non-free-firmware > component by default in the apt sources.list file. Our users should > receive security updates and important fixes to firmware binaries just > like any other installed software. > > We will publish these images as official Debian media, replacing the > current media sets that do not include non-free firmware packages. > > ================================= > > A reason for defaulting to installing non-free firmware *by default* > is accessibility. A blind user running the installer in text-to-speech > mode may need audio firmware loaded to be able to drive the installer > at all. It's going to be very difficult for them to change this. Other > people should be able to drive the system (boot menus, etc.) to *not* > install the non-free firmware packages if desired. > > We will *only* include the non-free-firmware component on our media > and on installed systems by default. As a general policy, we still do > not want to see other non-free software in use. Users may still enable > the existing non-free component if they need it. > > We also need to do the work to make this happen: > > * in d-i, live-boot and elsewhere to make information about firmware > available. > > * add support for the non-free-firmware section in more places: > ftpsync, debian-cd and more. > > and I plan to start on some of those soon. Seconded Cheers > > [1] https://blog.einval.com/2022/04/19#firmware-what-do-we-do > [2] https://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2022/04/msg00130.html > [3] https://debconf22.debconf.org/talks/43-fixing-the-firmware-mess/ > [4] https://incoming.debian.org/debian-buildd/dists/buildd-unstable > [5] https://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2022/04/msg00214.html -- Sebastian Ramacher
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