[Mageia-dev] Non-free firmwares in installer

Thu Mar 24 20:08:32 CET 2011

On 24.03.2011 19:35, Romain d'Alverny wrote:
+> On Thu, Mar 24, 2011 at 17:45, Michael Scherer <misc at zarb.org> wrote:
+>> But my issue is not about non-free firmwares and those who use them or
+>> not, but about the gradual move to non-free packages on the free dvd iso
+>> ( http://netsplit.com/2006/11/27/slippery-slopes/ ).
+>>
+>> When I started at Mandrake Linux, there was no non-free repository. Then
+>> one day, non-free was created, and then soon, it was activated by
+>> default for the free version. Then I opened this bug,
+>> https://qa.mandriva.com/show_bug.cgi?id=40033 , who took 2 years to be
+>> fixed. And what I just see is yet another push to bury a little bit more
+>> values I care.
+> 
+> Please be more explicit about the values here then. So far I don't see
+> no push. We're discussing this. Speaking of values, is this going
+> against the project values and announcement so far? (even in a
+> slippery way)
+> 
+> Obviously, the very imperfect nature of free/non-free semantics does
+> not help at all here.
+> 
+> Summary (from http://mageia.org/wiki/doku.php?id=licensing_policy):
+>  * core: stuff that is not Free/Open Source according to OSI/FSF does
+> not belong here. Not even closed-source stuff that we can
+> redistribute. So if there is at this time, that's something to fix.
+
+Most of files in kernel-firmware (which is in core) are not OSI/FSF free
+(approximate list from 2010 [1]). There was a short thread about that
+[2] where I asked the question if they should be moved to non-free due
+to them not being OSI/FSF free, and tmb agreed, while pterjan disagreed
+(saying BSD without source code (where a portion of the firmware files
+in question fall) is eligible for core).
+
+[1] http://lists.mandriva.com/cooker/2010-01/msg00525.php
+[2] https://mageia.org/pipermail/mageia-dev/20110115/002172.html
+
+>  * nonfree: what does not qualify for core that we can still
+> redistribute; includes closed-source, proprietary, binaries and blobs.
+>  * tainted: what could be in core or nonfree but bears more risks
+> (software patents, most likely for now).
+> 
+> Now, for what we distribute in printed medias (DVD/CD for now), the
+> initial point was to provide some necessary bits from nonfree along
+> with core so that a local install can work with some specific hardware
+> (network, video).
+> 
+> That does not prevent from shipping CD/DVD that only bear core on it I
+> believe? (what we used to do with Free at MDV).
+> 
+> And that does not prevent from shipping too CD/DVD that bears more
+> than that (stuff located in nonfree), to ease setup for some users (or
+> even make a LiveCD usable).
+> 
+> Is there a problem here? which one?
+
+
+-- 
+Anssi Hannula
+