[Mageia-dev] Non-free firmwares in installer

[Romain d'Alverny]

On Fri, Mar 25, 2011 at 01:29, andre999 <andr55 at laposte.net> wrote:
> My though was essentially that firmware is so close to hardware that its
> actual free/non-free status shouldn't apply - we should treat it like
> (almost) part of the hardware.

No. Because it's hardware or firmware doesn't make it more or less an
issue regarding being open source or not. The same reasoning applies
as for software. And if it's not open source, it's not. Even closed
hardware is an issue in the end (in this regard, the open hardware
movement is still in its infancy but it's promising - and important
too).

That something is put in nonfree media instead of core shouldn't pose
an irresolvable issue for easyness of installation and use.

> That is, on installing from an iso, all hardware-related functions should
> (ideally) be fully functional, even if it requires using non-free drivers.

You are mixing two things: what goes into core or nonfree, and what
goes onto a shipped ISO.

The question is not shipping or not ISOs with or without nonfree stuff
on it. Some ISO will host core & nonfree parts of course, for the sake
of convenience for users (that doesn't prevent from informing about
the issues regarding nonfree stuff). But some available ISO ought to
host only core (that is, expected, only FLOSS).

Romain