Re: General Resolution: non-free firmware: results

[Simon McVittie]

On Wed, 05 Oct 2022 at 16:34:27 +0200, Philip Hands wrote:
> I didn't want to inflict work on the debian-cd
> team, and I assume that nobody will object if volunteers turn up to help
> build/test the free images. If they're built and tested, I'm pretty sure
> they'll be published.

As one of the people who sometimes helps Steve to test CD releases (but
not a debian-cd team member):

I suspect that one of the motivations for not wanting two sets of images
on an equal footing is that building and testing images is a time- and
resource-intensive process: by its very nature, building and testing an
installation image or a live image involves shovelling a lot of data
around, and there's a policy of requiring at least the live images to
be tested on real hardware, because there have been cases in the past
where the images worked fine on a VM but failed on real hardware. Last
time we did bullseye and buster point releases, I left Steve's house
well after midnight, and I don't think that's atypical.

It would be a much less draining process if the combinatorial explosion
of things to test was smaller: at the moment we have netinsts, CDs,
DVDs, 16G images for USB sticks, Blu-Ray images, a live image per major
desktop environment (for some value of "major"), various paths through the
installer, amd64/i386, UEFI/BIOS, non-firmware/firmware and so on. Not
producing separate firmware and non-firmware images is one way to speed
this up by making the critical path shorter. I suspect the debian-cd
team might also be seriously considering discontinuing the larger
installation images like the Blu-Ray and 16G USB stick - certainly I
would be, if I was them.

So if volunteers turn up to help build/test images without non-free
firmware, I'm sure nobody is going to object to them doing that work,
but it might come with some limitations in order to take that work off the
critical path of building and testing the primary deliverable on release
day, which will now be the version with firmware: perhaps something like
"yes, but only after the primary images are ready" or "yes, but please
build only the most useful 1-3 variants per architecture" or something
along those lines.

smcv

Re: General Resolution: non-free firmware: results

[Philip Hands]

Ian Jackson  writes:

> Russ Allbery writes ("Re: General Resolution: non-free firmware: results"):
>> I don't think you can draw any meaningful conclusions from this ranking
>> because of the concern that the latter option may have been ruled invalid
>> by the Project Secretary.  I prefer one installer (to focus our resources
>> and UX efforts), but voted "recommend installer" above "only one
>> installer" because of the constitutional concerns.
>
> You make a very good point.

I think interpreting other people's votes is very often problematic.

I voted the winning option first, despite a personal preference for
keeping the fully-free installer available.

The reason being that I didn't want to inflict work on the debian-cd
team, and I assume that nobody will object if volunteers turn up to help
build/test the free images. If they're built and tested, I'm pretty sure
they'll be published.

If someone builds them, I will certainly help test them with openQA.

If one of the options that forced the debian-cd team to publish free CDs
had won, then the potential volunteers for building them would not be
nearly so motivated to do the work, because they can just sit back and
let the debian-cd team do what they're told.

As it is, we either get more people to work on the CDs, or perhaps
it's not that important to people after all -- I'm sure we'll find out.

Anyway, I suspect the above isn't the first interpretation that comes to
mind of someone that voted the winning option top.

Cheers, Phil.
-- 
|)|  Philip Hands  [+44 (0)20 8530 9560]  HANDS.COM Ltd.
|-|  http://www.hands.com/http://ftp.uk.debian.org/
|(|  Hugo-Klemm-Strasse 34,   21075 Hamburg,GERMANY


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Re: General Resolution: non-free firmware: results

[Ian Jackson]

Steve McIntyre writes ("Re: General Resolution: non-free firmware: results"):
> On Tue, Oct 04, 2022 at 02:34:33PM +0100, Ian Jackson wrote:
> >Certainly given the narrow margin, we should do what we can to make it
> >easy for those who want to provide an unofficial fully-free installer
> >to do so.
> 
> Nod. As I said in my mail and blog at the weekend, my aim is to leave
> the options in code and config available to support that.

Cool, thanks.  (Somehow I am rather behind on planet.d.o)

Ian.

-- 
Ian JacksonThese opinions are my own.  

Pronouns: they/he.  If I emailed you from @fyvzl.net or @evade.org.uk,
that is a private address which bypasses my fierce spamfilter.

Re: General Resolution: non-free firmware: results

[Steve McIntyre]

On Tue, Oct 04, 2022 at 02:34:33PM +0100, Ian Jackson wrote:
>Debian Project Secretary - Kurt Roeckx writes ("General Resolution: non-free 
>firmware: results"):
>> The results of the General Resolution about non-free firmware:
>> Option 5 "Change SC for non-free firmware in installer, one installer"
>> 
>> The details of the results are available at:
>> https://www.debian.org/vote/2022/vote_003
>
>6 votes is a very tight margin between "one installer" and "two
>installers".
>
>Observe also that "Recommend installer containing non-free firmware"
>beat "Only one installer" by 12 votes.  I hesitate to say this, but it
>seems to me that the hypothetical option "Change SC, recommend
>installer containing non-free firmware" would have won if it had been
>on the ballot.
>
>Certainly given the narrow margin, we should do what we can to make it
>easy for those who want to provide an unofficial fully-free installer
>to do so.

Nod. As I said in my mail and blog at the weekend, my aim is to leave
the options in code and config available to support that.

>I think we might even want to link to it from the official page,
>inverting the way we currently do it.

Maybe, let's see how it goes.

-- 
Steve McIntyre, Cambridge, UK.st...@einval.com
"We're the technical experts.  We were hired so that management could
 ignore our recommendations and tell us how to do our jobs."  -- Mike Andrews

Re: General Resolution: non-free firmware: results

[Ian Jackson]

Russ Allbery writes ("Re: General Resolution: non-free firmware: results"):
> I don't think you can draw any meaningful conclusions from this ranking
> because of the concern that the latter option may have been ruled invalid
> by the Project Secretary.  I prefer one installer (to focus our resources
> and UX efforts), but voted "recommend installer" above "only one
> installer" because of the constitutional concerns.

You make a very good point.

Ian.

-- 
Ian JacksonThese opinions are my own.  

Pronouns: they/he.  If I emailed you from @fyvzl.net or @evade.org.uk,
that is a private address which bypasses my fierce spamfilter.

Re: General Resolution: non-free firmware: results

[Russ Allbery]

Russ Allbery  writes:
> Ian Jackson  writes:

>> Certainly given the narrow margin, we should do what we can to make it
>> easy for those who want to provide an unofficial fully-free installer
>> to do so.  I think we might even want to link to it from the official
>> page, inverting the way we currently do it.

> I certainly have no objections to that if someone wants to do the work
> to maintain it.

I should also say, more concretely, that the winning option explicitly
says that this portion of the GR is a project statement on issues of the
day.  The implication, in my view, is that this is our opinion today.  If
something changes (such as a team coming forward saying "hey, we want to
maintain a free installer"), our opinion may chnage.  It's not a technical
decision or a delegate override, and we don't need to hold another GR to
change our minds.

(This is one of the reasons why I prefer to have every GR clearly state
what part of the constitution it's operating under.)

-- 
Russ Allbery (r...@debian.org)  

Re: General Resolution: non-free firmware: results

[Russ Allbery]

Ian Jackson  writes:

> Observe also that "Recommend installer containing non-free firmware"
> beat "Only one installer" by 12 votes.

I don't think you can draw any meaningful conclusions from this ranking
because of the concern that the latter option may have been ruled invalid
by the Project Secretary.  I prefer one installer (to focus our resources
and UX efforts), but voted "recommend installer" above "only one
installer" because of the constitutional concerns.

> Certainly given the narrow margin, we should do what we can to make it
> easy for those who want to provide an unofficial fully-free installer to
> do so.  I think we might even want to link to it from the official page,
> inverting the way we currently do it.

I certainly have no objections to that if someone wants to do the work to
maintain it.

-- 
Russ Allbery (r...@debian.org)  

Re: General Resolution: non-free firmware: results

[nick black]

Ian Jackson left as an exercise for the reader:
> 6 votes is a very tight margin between "one installer" and "two
> installers".

for anyone not doing the work of producing and staging two
installers, there was little real difference between these two
options (less potential confusion was the other argument i
recall). i voted for one installer over two because my
experience running a Derivative left me thinking work on the
installer is fairly esoteric, difficult to test, and something
you want to keep as streamlined+simple as possible.

so it would seem to come down to doing the work, no?

-- 
nick black -=- https://www.nick-black.com
to make an apple pie from scratch,
you need first invent a universe.


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Re: General Resolution: non-free firmware: results

[Holger Levsen]

On Tue, Oct 04, 2022 at 02:34:33PM +0100, Ian Jackson wrote:
> Certainly given the narrow margin, we should do what we can to make it
> easy for those who want to provide an unofficial fully-free installer
> to do so.  I think we might even want to link to it from the official
> page, inverting the way we currently do it.
 
I agree. "It just needs someone who does the work." (tm)

And if noone is volunteering, maybe we dont need/want it for real, after all.

Time will tell. Talk is pointless here, IMO. It just needs someone who does
the work, first.


-- 
cheers,
Holger

 ⢀⣴⠾⠻⢶⣦⠀
 ⣾⠁⢠⠒⠀⣿⡁  holger@(debian|reproducible-builds|layer-acht).org
 ⢿⡄⠘⠷⠚⠋⠀  OpenPGP: B8BF54137B09D35CF026FE9D 091AB856069AAA1C
 ⠈⠳⣄

We are done with ‘world leaders’. Countries are on fire. Cities are drowning.
People are dying. This is what scientists and activists have been warning the
world and politicians about. It’s here. We ARE facing the impacts of the
climate crisis. Forget about the future, it’s now.
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General Resolution: non-free firmware: results

[Ian Jackson]

Debian Project Secretary - Kurt Roeckx writes ("General Resolution: non-free 
firmware: results"):
> The results of the General Resolution about non-free firmware:
> Option 5 "Change SC for non-free firmware in installer, one installer"
> 
> The details of the results are available at:
> https://www.debian.org/vote/2022/vote_003

6 votes is a very tight margin between "one installer" and "two
installers".

Observe also that "Recommend installer containing non-free firmware"
beat "Only one installer" by 12 votes.  I hesitate to say this, but it
seems to me that the hypothetical option "Change SC, recommend
installer containing non-free firmware" would have won if it had been
on the ballot.

Certainly given the narrow margin, we should do what we can to make it
easy for those who want to provide an unofficial fully-free installer
to do so.  I think we might even want to link to it from the official
page, inverting the way we currently do it.

Ian.

-- 
Ian JacksonThese opinions are my own.  

Pronouns: they/he.  If I emailed you from @fyvzl.net or @evade.org.uk,
that is a private address which bypasses my fierce spamfilter.

General Resolution: non-free firmware: results

[Debian Project Secretary - Kurt Roeckx]

Hi,

The results of the General Resolution about non-free firmware:
Option 5 "Change SC for non-free firmware in installer, one installer"

The details of the results are available at:
https://www.debian.org/vote/2022/vote_003


Kurt Roeckx
Debian Project Secretary



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