David Woodhouse wrote:
On Sat, 2008-06-07 at 19:43 -0400, Tom "spot" Callaway wrote:
I know this is flame bait, and we're obviously missing some context,
but it seems very much like you threw a temper tantrum at the first
sign of trouble, screamed "I TOLD YOU NO ONE HERE WANTS TO BE FREE"
and ran home.
Did you put up your patches without the rhetoric (through whatever
inane obfuscation you needed)? Were they rejected?
No, I did it all: git.infradead.org/users/dwmw2/firmware-2.6.git
(well, not _all_ -- there are more drivers to convert. Help wanted!)
It wasn't rejected -- it's in the linux-next tree and should be going in
to 2.6.27. One we finish converting the drivers, we should have the
capacity to rip _all_ the firmware blobs out of the kernel without
permanently losing functionality.
At that point, we can at least have the _discussion_ about removing
those blobs from the kernel source tree and putting them in a separate
repository, without it being pie-in-the-sky.
Alex now says it isn't good enough, and is actually counter-productive.
If I get Alex correctly he is saying that, to his goal, which is 100% Free
software everywhere (including in his toothbrush), this is counterproductive,
as it may make it easier to distribute binary firmware along with the kernel,
as it now could be put in a seperate tarbal removing GPL worries etc.
As much as I admire Alex's goal's I'm very glad with the current pragmatic
approach Fedora has taken with regards to firmware.
And when combining both these perspectives, David, you patch is excellent and
I'm very gratefull for all the work you've been doing on it.
If the firmware truely gets put in a different tarbal (and thus eventually in a
different srpm), then it will be feasible to do a no blobs included Fedora spin
like gnewsense, which would be great.
Now Alex worries about someone still slipping in some firmware into the kernel
itself instead of into the firmware package, well as with the current situation
with a completely seperate kernel, audits will still be necessary. But I hope
that DaveJ will be willing to carry patches for any firmware sneaked in (if we
ever get as far as the split), as once firmware and kernel are split, embedded
firmware could be considered a bug. The carrying of these patches (which must
be send upstream), will be the price we have to pay if we want a blob-free spin.
Regards,
Hans
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