[Mageia-dev] Non-free firmwares in installer

[Frank Griffin]

On 03/25/2011 12:34 PM, Antoine Pitrou wrote:
> My two cents as an user:
>
>> Presumably, FLOSS supporters are satisfied with the state of the current
>> ISOs, and https://bugs.mageia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=523 would address
>> extending install functionality without changing the content of the
>> existing ISOs, which should be an improvement over where we are now
>> without corrupting the FLOSS purity of the existing ISOs.
> Not all "FLOSS supporters" believe that ISOs should be "pure".
> I would label myself a FLOSS partisan (having contributed in FLOSS
> projects for 10 years), and yet I don't really make a fuss if an
> ISO contains non-free software, especially if such software is
> necessary for good use of some peripherals...

Neither do I.

> By labelling "FLOSS supporters" only the partisans of aforementioned
> "purity" (a term which, in any political context, should really give you
> shivers), you are making the community as a whole a disservice. It is
> not "the purists" vs. "the realists", or some other caricatural
> reduction of reality.

The labeling was for typographical convenience, simply a way to 
differentiate one camp in this discussion from the other, and was pretty 
obviously not a part of the intrinsic arguments.

I'm on neither side in this; my interest is in having the install 
support wireless networking, which has nothing to do with whether there 
is one ISO or two.  All the necessary files are already in the distro, I 
just want the install to use them if they're available.  That is not a 
FLOSS/non-FLOSS/sorta-FLOSS issue.  I install cooker/cauldron only, and 
I haven't installed from an ISO since I got involved with cooker except 
as an occasional test.

I don't care how many ISOs there are, or whether the installer gets 
these files from the moon.  I just figure I have a better chance of 
seeing this implemented if I point out that two ISOs steps on as few 
toes as possible, given the current contents of the DVDs.  If you want 
to take up cudgels about merging them for an additional 1% or so of user 
experience, be my guest.