On 2021-01-22 06:56:27 +0100 (+0100), Emanuele Rocca wrote: > On 15/01 03:30, Jeremy Stanley wrote: > > This boils down to a debate over whether the Debian community values > > convenience over ideals. > > This is not about convenience, it's about being able to install Debian > on real hardware or not. Without firmware, the installer does not do the > only thing it is supposed to do, namely installing the OS. > > Also, this is not in any way a trade-off between installing Debian and > Free Firmware. In a trade-off between A and B, if you decrease A then B > increases. If you want an ice cream and you have a coin in your pocket, > you must choose whether you want to give away the coin to get the > ice cream, or keep the coin and walk away without ice cream. > > Here we are making the installer useless without getting Free Firmware, > ie: we don't get the ice cream, and throw away the coin.
As I explained in followup, my objection was that I felt it important to still have an installer which won't automatically install non-free software on my system without at least telling me what it's installing and giving me the ability to decline what I know I don't need. I was replying specifically to the assertion that an installer which automatically installs all non-free firmware/tools it thinks you *might* need based on what hardware it can see on your system "works for all users" (which could be construed by some as implying that there's no need for the other installer any longer). Taking away the choice for users who care about software freedom to opt out of non-free content in the installer and find alternative options would be a loss of freedom, in service of convenience for users who aren't as invested in trying to minimize their use of non-free software. This is the trade-off between convenience and ideals to which I refer. -- Jeremy Stanley
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