[Mageia-discuss] Hauppauge WinTV PVR-250

Sat Jun 4 17:57:02 CEST 2011

On 6/3/11, Gary Montalbine <gmontalbine at cox.net> wrote:
+
+>
+> I got the firmware from the IVTV site and copied  it to /lib/firmware
+>
+
+
+But that is a band-aid, a kludge, that gives you a cobbled-together
+system, not to mention it does not really solve the problem for the
+distro and the wider user base. And every time you need to install
+Mageia on that hardware, you'll need to apply the kludge again and
+again.
+
+The goal should be to have a distro that 'just works'. Solving the
+problem by copying files from outside the repositories may point out a
+deficiency in Mageia repos, but not if the solution can be found
+within.
+
+And this brings up a point of having the tainted repos as "opt-in".
+This thinking comes from a philosophy of some kind of "pure" Linux
+which eschews non-free licensed software.However, some hardware can
+only be useful with non-free software and it's unrealistic to pretend
+that such hardware does not exist nor that those using such hardware
+will have the knowledge and skill to enable the tainted repo.
+
+I realize that the purists among us have decide to disable the tainted
+repos by default, but those same people are the ones most likely to
+have selected hardware that does not depend on non-free software and
+they are also skilled Linux users. The opt-in approach serves to
+advance their political agenda at the expense of having a distro that
+'just works' for the average to non-technical user.
+
+It may be more sense to enable the tainted repos by default and
+provide an opt-out screen during the installation: "Repositories
+offering access to software that have non-free licenses are enabled by
+default. To keep your Mageia system unencumbered by software with
+restrictive or non-free licenses, please un-check the box. Certain
+hardware may not function without such non-free software and if you
+are unsure, leave the box checked."
+
+That gives users a choice, makes Mageia a 'just works' distro for the
+average user and reduces the number of requests for assistance that
+can be solved by using non-free software.
+
+-- 
+Hoyt
+