kernel-libre (hopefully 100% Free) for Fedora 8 and rawhide

[Alexandre Oliva]

On Mar 23, 2008, Alan Cox <alan at redhat.com> wrote:

> If it is on ROM with the system (and unchangable) you don't mind
> If it is uploaded (so hackable) you do mind

I do mind both.  Both harm me.

I do mind when Fedora becomes part of the distribution channel for
non-Free Software.  That's a problem.

But none of these are the problems I'm trying to solve right now.

I'm just trying to offer an option for people who would rather be able
to distribute something they can call Fedora without becoming part of
the problem.

> There are good reasons to get firmware files out of the kernel binary

Yup.

> (paging, update ease of use, and just clarifying licence vagueness) but
> trying to create an incentive to make vendors produce unhackable hardware
> is not one of them to my mind.

Straw man.  I'm not trying to create any such incentive.

If anything, I'm trying to create incentive for vendors to release
their firmware as Free Software.  But I'm not going to hold my breath
until they do.

> The other area I find your logic hard is that you simply want to remove
> stuff, yet by doing the job properly (using the firmware loader) you'd
> get the firmware split out and not have to keep updating your patches
> for every kernel there is.

This is not something I can choose.  I can't get this stuff upstream,
not right now, perhaps not ever.  Meanwhile, any driver that
absolutely depends on non-Free firmware to work is a waste of
resources, is an invitation for people to give up their freedom.  I'm
not playing on this team, and IMHO Fedora shouldn't be either, if it
cares for its stated mission.  But one step at a time.  First, we need
a 100% Free kernel in Fedora.

Note that I'm not saying I'd rather keep maintaining the changes.  But
I will respect upstream's wishes to keep things the way they prefer,
while I keep things the way I need.

-- 
Alexandre Oliva         http://www.lsd.ic.unicamp.br/~oliva/
FSF Latin America Board Member         http://www.fsfla.org/
Red Hat Compiler Engineer   aoliva@{redhat.com, gcc.gnu.org}
Free Software Evangelist  oliva@{lsd.ic.unicamp.br, gnu.org}