On Tue, Jan 20, 2009 at 11:33:08PM -0500, Richard M Stallman wrote: > > In general we want not to distribute programs that require non-free > > software to work. > > We wouldn't be doing that. We'd be distributing programs that don't > work at all, unless 'notifying the user of incompatibility with Free > Software' is regarded as a feature. There wouldn't be any traces of any > actual dependency on non-Free Software there. > > In one sense, that is true. > > In another sense, all the REST of the code in that driver is code that > will only work with a certain non-free program (plus a small change in > the line that calls the loader). > > Both interpretations seem valid. So the question is, what serves the > cause better? To include that program, or to delete it? > > I think (or thought) that deleting it is better. But I am not > absolutely certain.
If we're talking about drivers, the user won't usually know they're asking for firmware files, unless she's knowledgeable enough to check dmesg. OTOH I think it's bad to assume the firmware is always going to be non-free. It could be liberated, or others could write a replacement, and then not having the ability to load the free version becomes a technical inconvenience. -- Robert Millan The DRM opt-in fallacy: "Your data belongs to us. We will decide when (and how) you may access your data; but nobody's threatening your freedom: we still allow you to remove your data and not access it at all." _______________________________________________ linux-libre mailing list [email protected] http://www.fsfla.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/linux-libre
