Re: Changing how we handle non-free firmware
Kurt Roeckx <kurt@roeckx.be> writes:
> If you believe that any of the options conflict with the DSC, I would
> like to see a discussion about that too.
> It's my current interpretation that all voting options, even if they
> might conflict with the DSC, will be on the ballot, and might not
> require a 3:1 majority. That is, I don't think the Secretary can decide
> not to include an option that might conflict, or put a 3:1 majority
> requirement on it because they think it conflicts.
I'm not disagreeing with Kurt's interpretation here, but as a voter I
would love for one of the proponents of a ballot option to add non-free
firmware to the installer to state that they are going for a 3:1 majority
to modify the Social Contract and add an explicit statement to this effect
to point 5 of the Social Contract. It would only take a sentence, I
suspect, something like:
The Debian installer may include firmware that does not conform to the
Debian Free Software Guidelines to enable use of Debian with hardware
that requires such firmware.
(I hear the folks who think we need to define firmware; I don't agree, but
I respect the argument and wouldn't vote against an option that tried to
do that.)
The failure mode that I'm worried about here is that a ballot option
passes expressing a position that we should include non-free firmware but
since it doesn't explicitly update the Social Contract some folks who
disagree with this direction for Debian continue to believe doing so is
invalid and we don't actually put the argument to rest. Also, if the 3:1
majority option doesn't pass but a 1:1 option that doesn't require a
supermajority does pass, that's also useful information. (For example, I
believe that would imply that such an installer has to continue to be
labeled as unofficial and not a part of the Debian system, since I think
that's the plain meaning of point 5 of the Social Contract.)
> However, if an option that might conflict wins, the Secretary might have
> to decide if it conflicts or not, and if it conflicts void the GR.
It would be better if we could figure that out in advance of the vote, of
course, since it might be relevant to choice ranking.
--
Russ Allbery (rra@debian.org) <https://www.eyrie.org/~eagle/>
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