Re: Possible draft non-free firmware option with SC change
On Mon, Sep 12, 2022 at 08:18:13PM +0200, Simon Josefsson wrote:
>Russ Allbery <rra@debian.org> writes:
...
>Okay. But given a situation when someone comes to you with a hardware
>component that requires non-free software to work, and asks you to
>install Debian on it, would you resolve that by
>
> 1) install the free Debian system on it and provide them with the
> documentation and binaries how to install the non-free software
> required after they made their own informed decision
>
>or
>
> 2) install the Debian system including the non-free work on it and
> provide them with documentation explaining what happened
>
>?
>
>I take it yours and Steve's proposals is 2) while mine is 1).
Yup, exactly!
>And, yes, approach 1) may result in the possibility that you have to say
>"sorry, I can't install Debian on your hardware, and here is why". We
>say the same when someone comes with an old 8086 processor or a quantum
>computer prototype too, too broaden the view a bit.
Sure, but right up front those are much more obvious. Most users with
a reasonable current-ish machine (FSVO "reasonable" and "current"!)
will expect to be able to install and use Debian or some other Linux
distro on their machine. If a new user comes along with such a machine
and asks for help to install and we say "sorry, can't!" then that's
quite an issue. There are lots of distros out there, and it's quite
likely they'll just try another that's less picky. If that distro
works, the chances are:
* We'll never see the user as a Debian user again.
* They'll happily share stories of how useless/crap Debian was. The
actual details will be lost.
Or they may just abandon things and go back to Windows/Mac and assume
that Free Software isn't for them. None of these are good for us.
--
Steve McIntyre, Cambridge, UK. steve@einval.com
Who needs computer imagery when you've got Brian Blessed?
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