[Mageia-dev] Non-free firmwares in installer

[andre999]

Ahmad Samir a écrit :
>
> On 24 March 2011 02:58, Dexter Morgan<dmorganec at gmail.com>  wrote:
>> On Thu, Mar 24, 2011 at 1:38 AM, Ahmad Samir<ahmadsamir3891 at gmail.com>  wrote:
>>>
>>> Has the Free DVD in Mandriva ever contained non-free firmware?
>>
>> No, but the question is more , will we provide a "non free" dvd iso,
>> and this question is i think interesting.
>>
>
> It can't be "free" and have "non-free" firmware... previously the
> firmware only were on the Live CD's. I am not sure anything has been
> changed in that regard (i.e. I didn't see the matter get discussed
> yet).

Whatever it's called, it doesn't make much practical sense to exclude 
important drivers from the dvd.  Sure, ideological correctness could 
prevail, but I see no problem adding a non-free directory including only 
important drivers, such as video, wi-fi.  Note that some distros are 
reported to put such drivers in their main free repository, which could 
also be done.
Let's face it, one of the best ways to discourage new (Mageia) Linux 
users is to have an iso that doesn't work "out of the box".
Even experienced users/programmers find that frustrating -- how do you 
think that ordinary users will respond ?
So I think that there should be an explicit policy to include, on all 
official isos, drivers for all (common) hardware.  If there is no 
reliable "free" driver available, so include non-free.
Whether such drivers are put in a non-free repository is another 
question.  Personally I'd just put them in core until a reliable free 
driver becomes available, but that isn't critical to a working system.

my 2 cents :)

-- 
André