Debian Begins A General Resolution To Decide What To Do With Non-Free Firmware

[rleigh]

many don't know anything about how the GPL affects hardware support

Count me as one of them. What on earth would the GPL have to do with anything related to hardware support? It's a distribution licence for specific software packages under that licence, and is entirely unrelated to the distribution of firmware of any description under any licence. Aggregation of free and non-free software on the same distribution medium is perfectly permissible. So where exactly would the GPL come into this?

[Waethorn]

Count me as one of them. What on earth would the GPL have to do with anything related to hardware support? It's a distribution licence for specific software packages under that licence, and is entirely unrelated to the distribution of firmware of any description under any licence. Aggregation of free and non-free software on the same distribution medium is perfectly permissible. So where exactly would the GPL come into this?

Many distros package their media under the same license. When they do this, it dictates whether xyz hardware is supported because the media won't ship with non-GPL drivers or firmware.

[rleigh]

Many distros package their media under the same license. When they do this, it dictates whether xyz hardware is supported because the media won't ship with non-GPL drivers or firmware.

No, they don't. Show me an example where a distribution has media distributed "under the same licence", where you believe this to be the case, please.

The licence of the individual packages comprising a Linux distribution have no bearing on the licensing of other packages within the distribution. The distributor has zero rights to relicence any of the software under different terms than provided by the original copyright holders. The distribution medium isn't licenced under the terms of the GPL, but some of the constituent packages may be. The other packages remain under their original licences, be that BSD, MIT, CDDL, proprietary or whatever. There isn't a Linux distribution in existence which is solely GPL code.

The choice to not provide non-GPL drivers or firmware isn't due to licensing, since both are entirely permissible, it's due to the choice of the distributor to create and enforce that limitation.

[Waethorn]

No, they don't. Show me an example where a distribution has media distributed "under the same licence", where you believe this to be the case, please.

The licence of the individual packages comprising a Linux distribution have no bearing on the licensing of other packages within the distribution. The distributor has zero rights to relicence any of the software under different terms than provided by the original copyright holders. The distribution medium isn't licenced under the terms of the GPL, but some of the constituent packages may be. The other packages remain under their original licences, be that BSD, MIT, CDDL, proprietary or whatever. There isn't a Linux distribution in existence which is solely GPL code.

The choice to not provide non-GPL drivers or firmware isn't due to licensing, since both are entirely permissible, it's due to the choice of the distributor to create and enforce that limitation.

Well if you want to be facetious, show me just one BSD-licensed external module for hardware support that is shipped on Debian's official media.

[rleigh]

Well if you want to be facetious, show me just one BSD-licensed external module for hardware support that is shipped on Debian's official media.

Err, that would be entirely unrelated to the point in question. What might be shipped is entirely different to what could be shipped. Please actually address the question I asked.

You asserted: "Many distros package their media under the same license", so presumably you already have some examples where this is the case. Show me one example where this is true.

[Waethorn]

Err, that would be entirely unrelated to the point in question. What might be shipped is entirely different to what could be shipped. Please actually address the question I asked.

You asserted: "Many distros package their media under the same license", so presumably you already have some examples where this is the case. Show me one example where this is true.

Honestly I don't really care. Debian ships with a Linux kernel that excludes non-free firmware and closed-source modules. The kernel is licensed under the GPL. Therefore, the GPL does indeed have an effect on your hardware support with their media. Any other software packages that may or may not be GPL under a distribution agreement for any distro has no bearing on hardware support. They note that their non-free, unofficial ISO's do not comply with GPL software freedoms because of hardware support that requires non-free firmware and modules.

[rleigh]

Honestly I don't really care.

You cared enough to post your reply, but not enough to actually understand how software licensing works. Honestly, the quality of the discourse on Phoronix is so low, there's a reason I rarely participate.

Debian ships with a Linux kernel that excludes non-free firmware and closed-source modules. The kernel is licensed under the GPL. Therefore, the GPL does indeed have an effect on your hardware support with their media.

The thinking here is rather muddled. The licensing of the kernel under the GPL is not in any way related to the contents and licensing of the installation media as a whole. The GPL licence is a distribution licence for individual software packages. It has no bearing on collections of software. The licence itself makes that point clear, calling it "mere aggregation".

The GPL does not have any effect on the "hardware support with their media" as you said it. That's not the GPL. It's not a licensing issue. That's a deliberate choice by the distributor to implement that restriction. The GPL can not preclude the distribution of third-party non-GPL kernel modules on the installation media. That is completely outside its bounds, and explicitly stated in the licence. That's a distributor choice. Plenty of other distributions make the opposite choice, and it's still all perfectly legal.

Any other software packages that may or may not be GPL under a distribution agreement for any distro has no bearing on hardware support.

This is on its face a completely false statement. Of course other packages can provide hardware support. They can and they do. What are you even trying to say here?

They note that their non-free, unofficial ISO's do not comply with GPL software freedoms because of hardware support that requires non-free firmware and modules.

I think you've misquoted this. It might not be compliant with "software freedoms" but it's absolutely compliant with the GPL. Providing non-free firmware is not affecting any of the GPL-licensed packages within the system, so "complying with the GPL" is not actually true or false--it's completely beside the point. It might not be free software, and it might not be GPL-licensed, but "not complying with the GPL" is a completely false assertion. Who exactly is determining whether it's "compliant" or not? It's the official opinion of Debian, as it doesn't comply with the Debian Free Software Guidelines. But that's not the same thing as the GPL. And there is a school of thought that firmware shouldn't fall under the DFSG because it isn't running on any of the CPUs which Linux runs on. That's part of what this vote is all about.

I was a Debian developer for over a decade, and looked in detail at licensing issues. I voted on previous GRs about non-free firmware--you can even go and look up how I voted at the time. I would like to see the points you're trying to make, but you're confusing several different concepts and it's coming across as incoherent.

[LightBit]

I always install all non-free firmware. Running 100% free and open source system is imposible without open hardware. There is always non-free firmware on closed hardware, it is just not up to date, if you don't install it.

[elatllat]

i think the sane option would be to simply offer the non-free image as default download....

Yes that would be ideal.

I would prefer a distro with no proprietary software at all...

Use Fedora, it excludes ffmpeg, etc.

[binarybanana]

I'm a free software nutjob, but I prefer firmware not to be burned into hardware. Why? With a firmware blob you can at least inspect it, modify it or even reverse engineer it. It makes the hardware more hackable for its users, not less. And that to me is the reason software freedoms are so important. It allows me to examine, explore, tinker, improve and and use my stuff in ways they weren't intended to. Or at least lets someone else do the job for me. If not for that what's the point of having the source code and all the other freedoms as originally laid out by Stallman?
On the other hand, what I hate with a passion is signed, or god forbid, encrypted firmware that only the original vendor can modify. That stuff is pure evil. It's the worst of both worlds. You have a nasty blob to deal with and can neither inspect nor modify or fix it if it's broken. In a just world such a thing ought to be illegal, but alas...