Fedora Freedom and linux-libre

[jeff]

Hans de Goede wrote:
> If I get Alex correctly he is saying that, to his goal, which is 100% 
> Free software everywhere (including in his toothbrush), this is 
> counterproductive, as it may make it easier to distribute binary 
> firmware along with the kernel, as it now could be put in a seperate 
> tarbal removing GPL worries etc.
> 
> As much as I admire Alex's goal's I'm very glad with the current 
> pragmatic approach Fedora has taken with regards to firmware.
> 
> And when combining both these perspectives, David, you patch is 
> excellent and I'm very gratefull for all the work you've been doing on it.
> 
> If the firmware truely gets put in a different tarbal (and thus 
> eventually in a different srpm), then it will be feasible to do a no 
> blobs included Fedora spin like gnewsense, which would be great.

If you have to do a *SEPARATE* spin to do a free CD, why does the Fedora 
project spew crap like this everywhere:

"We try to always do the right thing, and provide only free and open source
software." [1]

It's simply not true and the author of that (Rahul Sundaram I think--he writes 
it everywhere else too), *MUST* know that isn't true. It's one thing if the 
non-free software that fedora shipped was considered a bug that just hasn't 
been eradicated but shipping non-free software is fedora *policy*.[1]

It's one thing to include some firmware, call a program GPL when it's not, ship 
non-free binaries etc., but at least don't lie about it on all your literature. 
  Sheez.

-Jeff

[1] http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Overview
[2] http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/SIGs/FirmWare  geez, you even have a special 
interest group in complete conflict with your supposed mission