Re: Changing how we handle non-free firmware
On Mon, Aug 22, 2022 at 11:32:23AM -0500, Gunnar Wolf wrote:
> Bart Martens dijo [Mon, Aug 22, 2022 at 06:24:32PM +0200]:
> > > > 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).
> > > > ...
> > > > We will publish these images as official Debian media, replacing the
> > > > ^^^^^^^^^
> > > > current media sets that do not include non-free firmware packages.
> > >
> > > We are replacing stuff very often, for example when we update the installer it
> > > is replaced too. For me, the replace in the proposal is meaning that kind of
> > > replacing.
> >
> > Yes indeed. It's replacing a free installer by a non-free one.
> >
> > > We'd not taking anything away in respect to the spirit of SC-1.
> >
> > We'd take away the free installer.
>
In practice, the free installer is useless on its own. Your laptop or
desktop already includes Intel/AMD firmware whether you update it or not.
Your disk drives have firmware - your WiFi card also has firmware (and it is
barely possible to secure WiFi cards/dongles with free firmware any longer).
If you have next to each other:
The installer disk which includes firmware-nonfree with a note that this
may be preferred for a straightforward install.
The installer disk which does not include non-free firmware - with a note
that this is ideal for virtualisation where the virtual machine is sitting
on masses of emulated firmware anyway.
The installer for Raspberry Pi - which has a note that for most models of
Raspberry Pi the only way to boot is to include non-free firmware available
from the Raspberry Pi Foundation.
The installer for WSL2 - which sits on an entire non-free operating system
but will allow you to run Debian on top of Microsoft's kernel.
you will then have a choice. The fact that Debian can't guarantee to fix
any firmware and is unconditionally reliant on what vendors provide can be
stated as a given.
Our priorities are our users and free software. If we produce something
that is uninstallable by anyone except experts with laptops running
coreboot or similar, are we helping the situation / encouraging people
to use the free software we provide?
If you find a laptop made in the last five years that requires no firmware
whatever, I'll be somewhat surprised. As Steve says, our current installer
locks out some users from using Debian _at_all_
Other people look to Ubuntu - which routinely bundles firmware - as the
source for their firmware-free distribution. Fedora is the other distribution
that really cares about the status of firmware and there are differences
between what they accept and what Debian accepts.
> If a free installer is still produced and offered alongside the one
> including non-free-firmware, would you feel more at ease? That sounds
> like an easy compromise to make, and many people would probably
> welcome it.
>
> Debian would recommend the one with non-free-firmware, for the
> purposes of enabling users to install on current hardware, but both
> would be available.
>
With every good wish, as ever,
Andy Cater
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