Fedora not "free" enough for GNU?

[Alexandre Oliva]

On Sep 23, 2008, Adam Jackson <ajax at redhat.com> wrote:

> 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.

I agree the distinction is not trivial.  But I've never had qualms
about firmware.  My issue is against non-Free Software.  That's why I
say that moving all firmware out of the kernel, regardless of whether
it's software, regardless of whether it's Free, is a different
problem.

>> 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.

Why should it?  Its goal is not to get all drivers to use firmware
loaders.  AFAICT from the deblob script, aic7xxx is one that has Free
firmware, so it's not even stripped off.  What's the concern?

> 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.

It just means they (or you) might have to build those modules with
firmware on their (or your) own *if* they're willing to sacrifice
their freedom, nothing but it.

Meanwhile, most users would know what they're getting.

> 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.

You evidently misunderstand the purpose of kernel-libre.

> Now you've expressed your distaste for converting such drivers to
> the firmware loader before [...]  It's also the primary functional
> reason (as far as I can tell) that kernel-libre is not something
> Fedora can consume.

My distaste didn't stop others from doing just that, so at this point
it's a non-issue, as pointed out upthread.

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

I'm interested in users' freedom.  I worked to offer an option, and I
work to spread it.  I hope it keeps on getting more users.

-- 
Alexandre Oliva         http://www.lsd.ic.unicamp.br/~oliva/
Free Software Evangelist  oliva@{lsd.ic.unicamp.br, gnu.org}
FSFLA Board Member       ¡Sé Libre! => http://www.fsfla.org/
Red Hat Compiler Engineer   aoliva@{redhat.com, gcc.gnu.org}