Re: Changing how we handle non-free firmware
On Tue, 2022-08-23 at 19:04 +0200, Vincent Bernat wrote:
> On 2022-08-23 18:50, Jonas Smedegaard wrote:
> > I mean, DSC#1 says that "Debian will remain 100% free" - how is
> > that possible if an official part of Debian is omitted?
> > Or how is it possible for the firmware-containing image to be free?
>
> If we consider firmware (not running on the CPU) to not be software.
We decided that all of Debian, including non-software such as
documentation, images, game data, ... should be under a free license.
So "not software" doesn't make a difference.
However I think it's fine to include non-free data on installation
media, just as one would get non-free bits when copying the Debian
archive. We aren't enthusiastic about it, so we just include a small
part of non-free that is practically required in many cases.
> > (I only see that being possible by treating the install image as not
> > part of Debian, which I consider an unacceptable interpretation).
For me installation media are more or less just a glorified non-tarball
of archive contents. So I apply the same standards I would apply to a
tarball of the Debian archive (which would include non-free).
Though I understand some people would like if non-free was removed from
the archive as well (possibly to a separate archive).
But reading this discussion I came up with a question: we currently
ship some version of the Debian installer as part of Debian in main.
There is [1] and also the debian-installer-11-netboot-amd64 packages.
I'm not sure if these would also include firmware or only the "large"
installation media built by the CD team? Do network install images need
to include it or can they reliably download it? The audio and video
examples suggest that firmware might be needed here early as well.
Ansgar
[1]: https://ftp.debian.org/debian/dists/bullseye/main/installer-amd64/
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