LWN headline: Blame Fedora = High Praise

Rahul Sundaram sundaram at fedoraproject.org
Tue May 1 15:36:26 UTC 2007


Alexandre Oliva wrote:
> On Apr 30, 2007, Rahul Sundaram <sundaram at fedoraproject.org> wrote:
> 
>> Alexandre Oliva wrote:
>>> Once more time, I'm not talking about the firmware in the kernel.
>>>
>>> That's harder to remove, I agree.  One has to get out of one's way to
>>> do that.
> 
>> Just pointing out that you are drawing a line between firmware inside
>> the kernel and firmware outside of it while Fedora is drawing a line
>> between firmware and other forms of proprietary software.
> 
> i) I'm not.  The FSF did, and did it a while ago, before even thinking
> about removing stuff from the kernel was thinkable.

It wasn't unthinkable at any point of time. We can claim that Fedora 
thinks that a distribution without the firmware we include is 
unthinkable. FSF compromised considered the practical aspects just like 
Fedora did.

> ii) The line is not between what's acceptable and what's not.  In time,
> all such non-Free firmware will be removed from the 100% Free distros,
> because they are committed to Freedom.  If not, we'll know they
> aren't, and the FSF will likely take them out of the list.

There is no public statement on the FSF website on this and there is no 
differentiation between distributions which include firmware in the 
kernel and which include them. Why aren't you changing it to educate end 
users?

>> Atleast in Fedora the division is clearly documented in the
>> packaging guidelines.
> 
> Which is and has always been incompatible with the stated goals of the
> Fedora project.

Yes, it's called a exception for a reason.

> Now, while it was there but wasn't exercised, it was bad but not
> terrible.  Now that it is exercised, we're basically telling pure Free
> Software activists to go away.  Is this the goal?  To trade each pure
> Free Software user for 1048576 freedom-unconcerned users?  :-(

FSF already does that by calling the distributions which include binary 
firmware inside the kernel as Free software distributions. Arguing that 
when FSF comprimises it's ok but when Fedora does it is not is just what 
you called

>> You need to bring this up Fedora 7 launch. Now is too late to be
>                            ^after
>> making changes for this release.
> 
> Well, yeah, but is this a frank argument?  Was it too late already
> when I first brought it up?  Was it too late already when I last did
> before this time?

Yes it was. It always will be until there is more resources to tackle 
this issue.

Rahul





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