On Mon, 4 Apr 2011 16:19:37 +0100 Ben Hutchings <b...@decadent.org.uk> wrote:
> On Mon, Apr 04, 2011 at 09:51:16PM +0930, Karl Goetz wrote: > > On Thu, 31 Mar 2011 20:52:39 +0100 > > Michael Dorrington <michael.dorring...@gmail.com> wrote: > [...] > > > AFAICT, the Debian kernel complies with the DFSG (or is extremely > > > close). However, it retains drivers that require a firmware in > > > order to be functional and where no free firmware currently > > > exists for them. So if you don't considered Debian to be a "Free > > > GNU/Linux distribution" then, I think, you won't considered the > > > Debian kernel to be suitable for gNewSense. > > > > Does this mean 'retained in tree', or is it the stuff with no free > > firmware in the non-free packages? > > Practically all modern peripherals run firmware, usually loaded from > EEPROM or flash, and almost always non-free. So the question is not > whether a driver relies on non-free firmware but whether that firmware > is required to be installed in the host filesystem and loaded via the > driver. Thanks for clarifying that, my wording was quite sloppy (sorry about that). > The drivers included in upstream kernel releases that load non-free > firmware are retained as part of the linux-2.6 source package and most > of them are included in the binary packages. (Some are excluded due > to quality considerations or because they rely on firmware embedded > within the driver, which we remove.) If we were to package these > drivers separately, they would belong in the 'contrib' archive section > (free software with non-free or unpackaged dependencies). Since we do > not, and since the kernel in general does not have non-free > dependencies, these drivers remain in the 'main' archive section. Thanks for this clarification. kk -- Karl Goetz, (Kamping_Kaiser / VK5FOSS) Debian contributor / gNewSense Maintainer http://www.kgoetz.id.au No, I won't join your social networking group
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