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<H1>[Mageia-dev] Non-free firmwares in installer</H1>
<B>Maarten Vanraes</B>
<A HREF="mailto:mageia-dev%40mageia.org?Subject=Re%3A%20%5BMageia-dev%5D%20Non-free%20firmwares%20in%20installer&In-Reply-To=%3C201103261405.41819.maarten.vanraes%40gmail.com%3E"
TITLE="[Mageia-dev] Non-free firmwares in installer">maarten.vanraes at gmail.com
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<I>Sat Mar 26 14:05:41 CET 2011</I>
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<PRE>Op zaterdag 26 maart 2011 13:19:10 schreef Michael scherer:
><i> On Fri, Mar 25, 2011 at 09:33:04AM +0100, Tux99 wrote:
</I>><i> > Quote: andr55 wrote on Fri, 25 March 2011 01:29
</I>><i> >
</I>><i> > > My though was essentially that firmware is so close to hardware that
</I>><i> > > its
</I>><i> > > actual free/non-free status shouldn't apply - we should treat it like
</I>><i> > > (almost) part of the hardware.
</I>><i> >
</I>><i> > I agree with that. After all nobody (apart from R. Stallmann) questions
</I>><i> > the fact that the BIOS of their PC is non-free or all the other firmware
</I>><i> > or microcode on various chips on the motherboard and on expansion cards
</I>><i> > and peripherals.
</I>><i>
</I>><i> In fact, this bother a lot of people :
</I>><i>
</I>><i> People who write coreboot for example ( <A HREF="http://www.coreboot.org">http://www.coreboot.org</A> ). The
</I>><i> project started because someone wanted to be sure that his cluster didn't
</I>><i> have bios problem. It is a daunting task to hit any key on 1000 servers,
</I>><i> especially if none of them have a keyboard.
</I>><i>
</I>><i> People who just want to know how the pc work, for example, students in low
</I>><i> level system. Lack of source doesn't really help to understand and learn,
</I>><i> at least for the average people.
</I>><i>
</I>><i> People who maybe want to understand why the driver they wrote broke with
</I>><i> firmware update ( happened on some Apple laptop because apple updated
</I>><i> something that broke video driver on linux ). Or why it work with some
</I>><i> card and not some other, since they have a different firmware.
</I>><i>
</I>><i> People who wonder if their TPM chips is really under their control or not.
</I>><i> Maybe a bunch of loonies. Maybe they are just ex sony customers screwed by
</I>><i> their vendor, or people who had 1984 on their Kindle before Amazon removed
</I>><i> it.
</I>><i>
</I>><i> Or simply people that want to know what was fixed for their hardware.
</I>><i> ( <A HREF="https://admin.fedoraproject.org/updates/F14/FEDORA-2010-18594">https://admin.fedoraproject.org/updates/F14/FEDORA-2010-18594</A> ). Or just
</I>><i> want to avoid security issues (
</I>><i> <A HREF="https://events.ccc.de/congress/2010/Fahrplan/track/Hacking/4174.en.html">https://events.ccc.de/congress/2010/Fahrplan/track/Hacking/4174.en.html</A> ).
</I>><i> Or avoid waiting 5 minutes delay when booting a server for likely no good
</I>><i> reason.
</I>><i>
</I>><i> Or people that have trouble because the lack of free software in their area
</I>><i> prevent them from doing their work as security researcher, as demonstrated
</I>><i> by the project Osmocombb ( <A HREF="http://bb.osmocom.org/trac/">http://bb.osmocom.org/trac/</A> ).
</I>><i>
</I>><i> But, yes maybe if we remove some security researchers, some cluster admins,
</I>><i> some people that would prefer to not be screwed by vendor, some kernel
</I>><i> developpers, some impatient sysadmins, some students, some coders and RMS,
</I>><i> there is no one who question it.
</I>
i agree that free software is important, but if it's a blob without released
source code but with BSD license, i really don't see the problem. perhaps
someone could just ask the people who licensed it, for the source code...? but
this is a thing to do for FSF, not mageia. that is my point.
it doesn't mean i don't agree with what those people are doing, they should
release it with it. But that still doesn't make it the job of Mageia to fix
that.
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