Fedora not "free" enough for GNU?

[Gregory Maxwell]

On Sun, Sep 7, 2008 at 7:48 PM, Conrad Meyer <konrad at tylerc.org> wrote:
> Fedora will not include a blob free kernel though, unless upstream does it
> (i.e. what dwmw2 was trying to help Alexandre Oliva with, despite being
> insulted for trying to help).

Presumably fedora could offer an alternative kernel from a different
upstream to meet this requirement?

(An yes, Vasile, I'm aware of BLAG, but blag isn't just de-blobbed Fedora)

Fedora has a great branding ("Infinite Freedom" etc), it's unfortunate
to see it diluted over this technically minor issue.   It may be moot,
however, since blobs may not be the only blocker. (For example, as
distributed, Firefox in Fedora is constantly nagging me to install
Flash, and I don't think upstream is interested in changing that
behaviour, and one of RMS's criteria in the past is that the OS should
not make non-free software automatically available for install as
though it were the same as free software)

Though I'm perhaps a bit confused by exactly how the rules with
respect to following upstream are applied for cases like this, since
are there not some packages which are perpetually patched to remove
the MP3 codec, for example?