Re: [Fsuk-manchester] Talking about non-free software on the list

[Simon Ward]

On Wed, Feb 20, 2013 at 03:50:48PM +0000, Dave Page wrote:
> Whether the firmware is stored on the device or on disk while the
> machine is powered off doesn't affect whether it's free or not. I'm not
> personally convinced that it's morally worse to use a peripheral which
> has non-free firmware loaded at boot time from disk, than one which has
> non-free firmware stored locally

If it resides on my disk and is loaded from my free operating system
rather than the device, then I should be able to inspect it, modify it,
replace it, etc.

Besides, much of the hardware where the firmware resides on the device
is in *programmable* ROM these days. This is something that is easily
modifiable ergo I should be able to modify it. It makes sense to me
that it should be free software. The FSF includes free firmware that is
flashed onto the device in its campaigning.

> - yet one of these is forbidden by FSF-approved distributions and one
> is accepted.

If software vendors are required to distribute firmware then any
restrictions placed on the firmware inherently affect the software
containing it. Free software needs to contain free software to be free.

> Debian **(without the non-free repository)** as a "free software"
> distribution

The non‐free repository is FSF’s major point of contention. The non‐free
firmware recommended during installation issue is small and should
hopefully be satisfied by a re‐wording, and was discussed on
fsf-collab-discuss[1].

Remove the non‐free repository* (and apply the re‐wording), and I suspect
the FSF would be happy to call it a free software distribution too. :)

*I guess some documentation may also need to be re‐worded to remove
reference to non-free or include dire warnings of the dangers of
running non‐free software too.

Debian’s argument that the non‐free repository is not “in Debian” is a
bit weak in my view. It is distributing non‐free software, however many
weasel words you try to disguise it with.

[1]: 
http://lists.alioth.debian.org/pipermail/fsf-collab-discuss/2012-August/000108.html
-- 
A complex system that works is invariably found to have evolved from a
simple system that works.—John Gall

signature.asc
Description: Digital signature