On Mar 23, 2008, Anders Karlsson <anders@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote: > * Alexandre Oliva <aoliva@xxxxxxxxxx> [20080323 20:52]: >> On Mar 23, 2008, Chris Snook <csnook@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote: >> > Pardon my ignorance, but I honestly don't see a risk in shipping >> > *sources* which contain hex-coded firmware blobs that have been >> > licensed for distribution, >> >> This is not about the risk. This is about not distributing non-Free >> software. For me, it's not a matter of licensing, not a matter of >> license compatibility. It's a matter of not supporting the >> distribution of non-Free Software, no matter how hidden it is, or how >> important it is for some. > Right, so what is stopping you from maintaining your own branch of > Fedora, own repo's and own infrastructure for the work that you are > doing? Nothing AFAIK. I guess I could add these bits as a separate package to CVS (which is precisely what I had in mind), given approval for that. > I just do not understand the need to cripple Fedora I think you misunderstand. Nobody's talking about crippling Fedora. Nobody's talking about crippling Fedora's kernel. I'm talking about adding an *alternate* kernel package set, such that people can create Fedora spins that are 100% Free Software and still call it Fedora, and such that people who would rather run a 100% Free kernel have an option to do it. > If this really was so important, should this work not be done at the > upstream level, with kernel.org, rather than on distribution level. Considering how much effort gNewSense, BLAG, Dynebolic et al put into it, I don't get the impression that upstream is interested in that. > I am really glad to hear that. I still think that this effort you > describe, if this is that important, should be done upstream or by > cloning the distribution. Wouldn't you consider it silly to clone an entire distribution, replace all of its Fedora naming and themes (because the Fedora trademark guidelines wouldn't allow such a modified distro to be called Fedora any more), just because of a wish for an additional kernel that's right in line with Fedora's stated goals? > Utopia sounds good, but the path there is not short, nor a straight > line. While I agree with you that 100% Free (as in speech) should be > the goal, having a gun-foot moment now is counter-productive. There's a big misunderstanding here. There's no gun-foot moment, I'm talking just about an additional package, that I'm willing to maintain myself. We add new packages every day. Sure, not so big ones, not so active ones, but still, that's mostly my problem, no? If you don't want to use it, carry out your life as usual. If you care about Fedora's stated mission of building an OS entirely out of Free Software, this helps achieve this goal, and considering upstream's stance, that's the best we can aim at. > Wireless firmware is closed source at the moment for very good > reasons. s/good reasons/lame excuses/ > The trade-off then was open driver - closed firmware (so that power to > the transmitter was controlled in firmware). Looking at this thread, > that seems to still be the case. That firmware is not part of the kernel at all. It's completely unaffected. > If you were to take this 'fight' seriously, then you should convince > the FCC (and similar organisations worldwide) that the control on RF > transmitters and airwaves should be relaxed to the point that > companies can release fully open firmware (as no-one will care if a > tweaked firmware is used to boost signal strength at the likely cost > of interference with other peoples equipment around them). There are people working on that. Meanwhile, I'm working on something that I *can* fix right away. Why wait? > As you see, "choice" have repercussions. The question is, how far do > you want to take *your* "choice" at the expense of others? There's a misunderstanding here. How could my choice of maintaining an additional package (that per chance happens to be a 100% Free kernel) harm anyone whatsoever? -- Alexandre Oliva http://www.lsd.ic.unicamp.br/~oliva/ FSF Latin America Board Member http://www.fsfla.org/ Red Hat Compiler Engineer aoliva@{redhat.com, gcc.gnu.org} Free Software Evangelist oliva@{lsd.ic.unicamp.br, gnu.org} -- fedora-devel-list mailing list fedora-devel-list@xxxxxxxxxx https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-devel-list
