On Tue, 19 Apr 2022, Steve McIntyre wrote:
TL;DR: firmware support in Debian sucks, and we need to change this. See the "My preference, and rationale" Section below.
Agree.
In times past, all necessary firmware would normally be included directly in devices / expansion cards by their vendors. Over time, however, it has become more and more attractive (and therefore more common) for device manufacturers to not include complete firmware on all devices. Instead, some devices just embed a very simple set of firmware that allows for upload of a more complete firmware "blob" into memory. Device drivers are then expected to provide that blob during device initialisation.
For free software reasons, I believe that Debian should encourage this method of distribution too, because it opens up the option for free firmware to be developed as replacement for the non-free ones (or encouraging vendors to (eventually) release their firmware under a free licence). In the case of firwmare on the device, it is much harder to load a free one.
/Mattias Wadenstein
