[Mageia-dev] Non-free firmwares in installer

[andre999]

Romain d'Alverny a écrit :
>
> On Thu, Mar 24, 2011 at 20:08, Anssi Hannula<anssi.hannula at iki.fi>  wrote:
>> On 24.03.2011 19:35, Romain d'Alverny wrote:
>>> 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
>
> Ah right, sorry for overlooking this.
>
> So what do we do? amend core inclusion definition for that? or move
> these to nonfree? (and at what cost?) topic for next Council meeting
> to decide? would you like to write a summary for this in
> http://mageia.org/wiki/doku.php?id=meeting:council_notes_2011_03_28#open_questions
> ?
>
> Romain

fwiw, I think the best solution is to have an express policy to include 
such firmware in core.
Without it, much hardware simply won't work.  Firmware/drivers are 
essentially extensions to hardware, so that software can work with them.
The hardware is changed, and firmware/drivers have to be changed to 
accommodate the hardware.
These firmware/drivers provide an interface which allows (free) software 
to run.
A practical solution, which doesn't hurt free software.
The alternative is (free) software that doesn't run properly.

my 2 cents :)
-- 
André