[Arm-netbook] Block Diagram - ZEOMA - Handheld Games Console

[Andrew M.A. Cater]

On Sat, Oct 15, 2016 at 03:40:10PM +0100, Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton wrote:
> On 10/15/16, mdn <bernardlprf at openmailbox.org> wrote:
> > Debian's approach of this isn't really ethical.
> 
>  they're doing the best that they believe they can do, but they _have_
> been told.  see joey hess's very public description of the Debian
> Charter as a "toxic document".
> 
>  i've spoken to the FSF about this: from what i gather, the changes
> required are actually very very simple: all they have to do is add in
> a simple popup message whenever someone clicks the "nonfree" section,
> issuing a warning to the end-user that the consequences of their
> actions are leading them into unethical territory.
> 

Debian and the FSF have agreed to differ on this: Debian folk have problems
with GFDL with invariant sections, for example. Ask John Sullivan what 
the FSF posiiton is.

Non-free is NOT a part of Debian, nor is contrib - but they are provided
as a covenience for users. It's also worth knowing that security updates
for non-free are almost impossible.
 
BUT ... If you've got a Broadcom chipset, for example, you may have no option but to use
proprietary software. Most Intel wifi chips also require firmware - what are you going
to do when that's emebedded in a new laptop / nettop ? 

They repostiories do have to be explicitly enabled: the question of whether you want
to install non-free software is asked explicitly in the installer - so the notifications
are there.

Ironically, if wifi adapters / Ethernet cards still came with burnt-in firmware,
Debian would be a fully free distribution (and it's worth remembering that Debian
was endorsed and funded by the FSF for a while).

If you want any architecture other than Intel / AMD as a primary supported architecture
then your choice is prety much Debian from the mainstream distributions and Trisquel / GNewsense
are forks which don't yet support all other architectures. So, if you want to do work to
enable your project on a Cubietruck - you use Debian, probably. 

Andy C 

NOT SPEAKING FOR DEBIAN PROJECT AS A WHOLE :)

>  ... how simple would that be to add?
> 
> the other parts (creating separate DNS names and different
> repositories for the nonfree sections) could be done transparently
> with HTTP rewrites and redirects (just like devuan seems to be doing)
> as an interim measure, then removed at some appropriate point after a
> couple of major releases.
> 
> it's really, really not very hard, and we'd end up with Debian - one
> of the world's leading Software Libre OSes - being RYF Compliant.
> 
> as it is, we have to fuck around forking tens of THOUSANDs of
> packages, with efforts to do so failing under the sheer weight of the
> task and the required resources.
> 
> i really really wish the debian group would wake up, just a little bit.
> 
> *sigh*.
> 
> l.
> 
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