On Tue, Feb 24, 2026 at 11:07:28AM -0800, Russ Allbery wrote: > If we can agree on a statement without wasting a bunch of our time, that's > great, but it should be a statement that we make to our own users on our > own terms, and not some sort of debate with the current leadership of the > Free Software Foundation. The recent threads from Alexandre Oliva on > libc-alpha are, uh, illuminating.
A stab at this: # Why Debian GNU/Linux does not qualify as a Free distribution according to the FSF. The Free Software Foundation marks Debian as not a free distribution according to [their standards](https://www.gnu.org/distros/common-distros.html#Debian). While the FSF and Debian share a common goal of making the world a better place through improving [free software](https://www.debian.org/intro/free), we disagree on certain details of strategy how this can be accomplished most easily. The Debian project believes that it is better for our users to have the full use of their hardware, even if that hardware requires non-free firmware blobs, instead of forcing our users to either have to buy specific hardware that was specifically designed to not require non-free firmware blobs, or to have to disable part of their hardware in order to be able to use Debian. We believe that it is better to allow you to use our free software on the systems you already have, even if that means you may have to use non-free firmware blobs in order to be able to use part or all of your hardware. However, if you do want to refuse non-free firmware blobs on Debian, here is what you can do: (instructions on how to disable non-free firmware go here) Thoughts? Also, not sure where to put this. Maybe on the wiki somewhere? -- "I never had a C in history!" "Yeah, but there was so much less of it when you were my age!" -- Joe Brockmeier recounting a conversation with his father, cfgmgmtcamp 2026, Ghent
