[Mageia-dev] Non-free firmwares in installer

Romain d'Alverny rdalverny at gmail.com
Thu Mar 24 11:48:22 CET 2011


On Thu, Mar 24, 2011 at 11:39, Wolfgang Bornath <molch.b at googlemail.com> wrote:
> But I don't think it would be a good idea to include non-free contents
> in the distribution ISOs at all. That this assumed majority does not
> care about the issue does not mean we should not care either. We
> should rather stress the point.
>
> We already made such a difference by using different repositories, we
> not continue this in our "product line"? We use a different repo for
> non-free, we also should use a different ISO for non-free.

Well, that's precisely debatable (and why I'll try to setup a relevant
survey through marcom). The ISO can be seen as a static commodity
storage; that it holds core and nonfree makes no such difference as
that those two media are available from the network without
discrimination.

So yes, the ISO in itself would not be free anymore; but as long as
the install process does not pick into the nonfree media unless the
user asks to, what does it make an issue (not that I have no idea
about that, just that I'd like to see it expressed again from a
different POV of mine - and that will help for the survey definition
too).

And that would make the case for a consistent installing experience
that, no matter you're doing an exclusively ISO-based install or a
network-based install, you get through the same steps (with a
consistent opt-in or opt-out, clearly explained). It would only happen
that non-free media is available locally if asked for.

The alternative, if we're not to mix things on the static media, is to
have distinct ISOs: free and nonfree/tainted ones. Times the format:
DVD/CD/arch/USB through which we would have to decide to ease:
building, qa and distribution (we will have to choose a default one to
provide to visitors on the download page for instance).


Romain


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