[Mageia-dev] Non-free firmwares in installer

Anssi Hannula anssi.hannula at iki.fi
Thu Mar 24 20:08:32 CET 2011


On 24.03.2011 19:35, Romain d'Alverny wrote:
> On Thu, Mar 24, 2011 at 17:45, Michael Scherer <misc at zarb.org> wrote:
>> But my issue is not about non-free firmwares and those who use them or
>> not, but about the gradual move to non-free packages on the free dvd iso
>> ( http://netsplit.com/2006/11/27/slippery-slopes/ ).
>>
>> When I started at Mandrake Linux, there was no non-free repository. Then
>> one day, non-free was created, and then soon, it was activated by
>> default for the free version. Then I opened this bug,
>> https://qa.mandriva.com/show_bug.cgi?id=40033 , who took 2 years to be
>> fixed. And what I just see is yet another push to bury a little bit more
>> values I care.
> 
> Please be more explicit about the values here then. So far I don't see
> no push. We're discussing this. Speaking of values, is this going
> against the project values and announcement so far? (even in a
> slippery way)
> 
> Obviously, the very imperfect nature of free/non-free semantics does
> not help at all here.
> 
> Summary (from http://mageia.org/wiki/doku.php?id=licensing_policy):
>  * core: stuff that is not Free/Open Source according to OSI/FSF does
> not belong here. Not even closed-source stuff that we can
> redistribute. So if there is at this time, that's something to fix.

Most of files in kernel-firmware (which is in core) are not OSI/FSF free
(approximate list from 2010 [1]). There was a short thread about that
[2] where I asked the question if they should be moved to non-free due
to them not being OSI/FSF free, and tmb agreed, while pterjan disagreed
(saying BSD without source code (where a portion of the firmware files
in question fall) is eligible for core).

[1] http://lists.mandriva.com/cooker/2010-01/msg00525.php
[2] https://mageia.org/pipermail/mageia-dev/20110115/002172.html

>  * nonfree: what does not qualify for core that we can still
> redistribute; includes closed-source, proprietary, binaries and blobs.
>  * tainted: what could be in core or nonfree but bears more risks
> (software patents, most likely for now).
> 
> Now, for what we distribute in printed medias (DVD/CD for now), the
> initial point was to provide some necessary bits from nonfree along
> with core so that a local install can work with some specific hardware
> (network, video).
> 
> That does not prevent from shipping CD/DVD that only bear core on it I
> believe? (what we used to do with Free at MDV).
> 
> And that does not prevent from shipping too CD/DVD that bears more
> than that (stuff located in nonfree), to ease setup for some users (or
> even make a LiveCD usable).
> 
> Is there a problem here? which one?


-- 
Anssi Hannula


More information about the Mageia-dev mailing list