<div class="gmail_quote">On Sun, Mar 23, 2008 at 12:18 PM, Tom spot Callaway <<a href="mailto:tcallawa@redhat.com">tcallawa@redhat.com</a>> wrote: <blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;"> We've turned away other folks who've wanted to have a divergent kernel in Fedora (openVZ), so I don't see how we could do this. </blockquote></div> There's a difference between diverging which add stuff... and diverging by narrowly removing functionality from our existing kernel, or any upstream project for that matter, to better meet pre-defined policy requirements. That being said, I'd like to see this effort integrated into our existing kernel package if its possible. But after talking with Alexandre pretty extensively last evening on irc, I'm pretty sure that he's going to need help if we want his effort integrated. I'm pretty confident he would have the ability to maintain a separate kernel-libre package by rebasing off our existing package as necessary. But integrating the necessary changes in how we package the existing kernel to meet well defined libre distribution needs, would I think require a non-trivial commitment from our kernel maintainers to help Alexandre. Towards that end I've encouraged Alexandre to start that conversation with our kernel developers. I want to stress, that I think the goal Alexandre is attempting to achieve is important. There is a difference of opinion as to what Fedora as a project should be required to do with regard to firmware. I personally think the policy we have right now is the right policy for the project as a whole. But I think its important that we make room in the project for people like Alexandre who want to make a personal choice to abstain from using binary firmware, and to champion the open source ideals even to the level of firmware or all the way to open hardware if they so desire. If Alexandre wants to use and distribute a libre version of Fedora, then as a project we should help make that possible...without requiring everyone to use it. -jef