[Mageia-dev] Non-free firmwares in installer

Fri Mar 25 08:09:43 CET 2011

On Fri, Mar 25, 2011 at 01:29, andre999 <andr55 at laposte.net> wrote:
+> My though was essentially that firmware is so close to hardware that its
+> actual free/non-free status shouldn't apply - we should treat it like
+> (almost) part of the hardware.
+
+No. Because it's hardware or firmware doesn't make it more or less an
+issue regarding being open source or not. The same reasoning applies
+as for software. And if it's not open source, it's not. Even closed
+hardware is an issue in the end (in this regard, the open hardware
+movement is still in its infancy but it's promising - and important
+too).
+
+That something is put in nonfree media instead of core shouldn't pose
+an irresolvable issue for easyness of installation and use.
+
+> That is, on installing from an iso, all hardware-related functions should
+> (ideally) be fully functional, even if it requires using non-free drivers.
+
+You are mixing two things: what goes into core or nonfree, and what
+goes onto a shipped ISO.
+
+The question is not shipping or not ISOs with or without nonfree stuff
+on it. Some ISO will host core & nonfree parts of course, for the sake
+of convenience for users (that doesn't prevent from informing about
+the issues regarding nonfree stuff). But some available ISO ought to
+host only core (that is, expected, only FLOSS).
+
+Romain
+