DUG

[Marc Wiriadisastra]

On Fri, 2007-12-28 at 15:55 +0300, John Babich wrote:
> On Dec 28, 2007 6:22 AM, Marc Wiriadisastra <marc at mwiriadi.id.au> wrote:
> > <snip>
> >
> > Just a quick update on the wifi guide and all of that.
> > I'm looking to put a list of cards that are supported however
> > I don't know which cards are supported.
> >
> > I've contacted Bill and he replied to contact John Linville
> > which I have done but I'm assuming he's out of the
> > office/holidays and I'm waiting for that list.  I'm assuming
> > next week he'll be back or the week after so I will update that
> > page when I get the confirmed information.
> >
> > The other thing that I'm wondering about is whether we should
> > provide a guide on how to use the b43-cutter program?  The cutter
> > program is supported but the drivers are proprietary therefore
> > in order to provide a guide I would have to point them to the
> > proprietary websites.
> >
> 
> As you may know,. wifi connectivity is getting better, with more
> unencumbered wifi drivers. At the same time, there are some
> manufacturers, such as Boardcom, who won't release open-sourced
> drivers and no one has yet reverse-engineered one.
> 
> There are two ways to use proprietary Windows drivers with Linux:
> ndiswrapper and b43-cutter. Both require the use of  encumbered
> binaries
> 
> It is no secret that the Fedora Project does not condone the use of
> encumbered binaries, as this is against the spirit and practice of
> promoting FOSS software and practices. Official Fedora docs should not
> contain directions on how to do this. Of course, the tools are there
> and there's always the repository-which-must-not-be-named.  This
> repository exists because there are countries in the world where the
> laws are different. However, Red Hat, incorporated in the US, is
> subject to US laws.
> 
> This is both for well-documented legal and practical reasons at
> http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/ForbiddenItems.
> 
> Of course, codeina is another story, even if controversial. It's
> already documented at
> http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Multimedia/Codeina. We may want to link
> to this page or incorporate it directly into the DUG.
> 
> > Would love some feedback on that last issue.
> 
> You just got it :-)
> 
> Best Regards,
> 
> John Babich
> Volunteer, Fedora Project
> 

No disagreements with what you have said my question relates to the fact
that b43-cutter is shipped with Fedora itself.  I would only be pointing
out what is already in the readme and what is given with the package
itself which Fedora ships.

Thats why I'm confused by the situation since Fedora ships b43-cutter
which has as it's sole purpose the steps for installing proprietary or
closed source software.

I'll quote from the description of the package.

This package contains the 'b43-fwcutter' tool which is used to
extract firmware for the Broadcom network devices.

See the README.Fedora file shipped in the package's documentation for
instructions on using this tool. 

Cheers,


Marc