On Tue, 2005-03-08 at 15:40 -0500, Alan Cox wrote:
> On Tue, Mar 08, 2005 at 09:13:40PM +0100, Kyrre Ness Sjobak wrote:
> > Nobody was talking about including non-free *software* with the distro -
> > that wouldn't be to smart, agreed. This is about having HW that requires
> > firmware loadup JustWork (tm) when the driver is free as in freedom.
>
> I looked back through our original discussions - one thing I will say here
> is that firmware was simply never considered in the original discussions.
Alan,
I'm a little confused. Are you talking about this thread as 'our
original discussions' or has then been discussed elsewhere and you are
referring to these other threads. If so, could you supply some pointers
to where?
As to this thread, Dan raised issues about firmware inclusion in the 4th
item in this thread and I asked for some clarification about firmware
and how it should be viewed in my reply to hist comments. The original
post was about greater support for wireless in FC4 and while not
specifically about firmware, all the drivers in the world won't make a
lot of difference to out-of-the-box support if the firmware is not
included. It will, for example, make the movement towards network based
installs an absolute bitch if you need to get firmware for a third party
and supply it during the install process.
While I don't want to see Fedora distributing stuff it can't legally do
so, the only limitation I can see on distributing the firmware for the
ipw2200 is that license has to be include in the same folder as the
firmware. There's also the discussion about whether firmware is source
code based software, or an extension of hardware (and as such an image),
and how this affects Fedora.
I'm (obviously) from the camp that sees firmware as an extension of
hardware, but what implications this has I'm not sure, which is why I'm
asking (and pushing). ;-]
Rodd
--
>From the pain come the dream
>From the dream come the vision
>From the vision come the people
>From the people come the power
>From this power come the change
- Peter Gabriel