Fedora not "free" enough for GNU?

[Adam Jackson]

On Mon, 2008-09-22 at 17:32 -0300, Alexandre Oliva wrote:
> On Sep 22, 2008, Adam Jackson <ajax at redhat.com> wrote:
> > a problem that is not universally agreed to be a problem at all.
> 
> in spite of Fedora's stated goals.

Only if you think firmware is 100% software and 100% not content.  This
is far from being an obvious or trivial distinction.

> > But, now for a real technical objection:
> 
> > atropine:~% uname -a
> > Linux atropine 2.6.27-0.314.rc5.git9.fc10.i686 #1 SMP Sun Sep 7 20:57:41
> > EDT 2008 i686 i686 i386 GNU/Linux
> > atropine:~% modinfo -F firmware aic7xxx | wc -l
> > 0
> 
> Erhm...  Are you sure aic7xxx was built with any expectation of
> loading firmware through the standard firmware-loading interface,
> rather than of having it built right into the kernel image?

It appears to not use request_firmware(), correct.

But that's sort of the point.  kernel-libre makes no attempt to fix
those drivers to use the firmware loader, afaict.  Without that,
stripping firmware from disk drivers (and network drivers, for that
matter) is explicitly saying that some people's machines are worth
sacrificing in the name of firmware purity.

Given that firmware purity is not universally accepted to be a problem
worth solving, kernel-libre as it stands is not going to be universally
accepted as a solution worth adopting.

Now you've expressed your distaste for converting such drivers to the
firmware loader before, on the grounds that it encourages the use of
non-free firmware, which is not your goal.  That's well within your
rights to decide.  It's also the primary functional reason (as far as I
can tell) that kernel-libre is not something Fedora can consume.

Are you more interested in having produced a libre kernel package, or in
having users run it?

- ajax
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