On Mon, Aug 22, 2022 at 11:32:23AM -0500, Gunnar Wolf wrote: > Bart Martens dijo [Mon, Aug 22, 2022 at 06:24:32PM +0200]: > > > > We will include non-free firmware packages from the > > > > "non-free-firmware" section of the Debian archive on our official > > > > media (installer images and live images). > > > > ... > > > > We will publish these images as official Debian media, replacing the > > > > ^^^^^^^^^ > > > > current media sets that do not include non-free firmware packages. > > > > > > We are replacing stuff very often, for example when we update the > > > installer it > > > is replaced too. For me, the replace in the proposal is meaning that kind > > > of > > > replacing. > > > > Yes indeed. It's replacing a free installer by a non-free one. > > > > > We'd not taking anything away in respect to the spirit of SC-1. > > > > We'd take away the free installer. >
In practice, the free installer is useless on its own. Your laptop or desktop already includes Intel/AMD firmware whether you update it or not. Your disk drives have firmware - your WiFi card also has firmware (and it is barely possible to secure WiFi cards/dongles with free firmware any longer). If you have next to each other: The installer disk which includes firmware-nonfree with a note that this may be preferred for a straightforward install. The installer disk which does not include non-free firmware - with a note that this is ideal for virtualisation where the virtual machine is sitting on masses of emulated firmware anyway. The installer for Raspberry Pi - which has a note that for most models of Raspberry Pi the only way to boot is to include non-free firmware available from the Raspberry Pi Foundation. The installer for WSL2 - which sits on an entire non-free operating system but will allow you to run Debian on top of Microsoft's kernel. you will then have a choice. The fact that Debian can't guarantee to fix any firmware and is unconditionally reliant on what vendors provide can be stated as a given. Our priorities are our users and free software. If we produce something that is uninstallable by anyone except experts with laptops running coreboot or similar, are we helping the situation / encouraging people to use the free software we provide? If you find a laptop made in the last five years that requires no firmware whatever, I'll be somewhat surprised. As Steve says, our current installer locks out some users from using Debian _at_all_ Other people look to Ubuntu - which routinely bundles firmware - as the source for their firmware-free distribution. Fedora is the other distribution that really cares about the status of firmware and there are differences between what they accept and what Debian accepts. > If a free installer is still produced and offered alongside the one > including non-free-firmware, would you feel more at ease? That sounds > like an easy compromise to make, and many people would probably > welcome it. > > Debian would recommend the one with non-free-firmware, for the > purposes of enabling users to install on current hardware, but both > would be available. > With every good wish, as ever, Andy Cater