pages tagged firmwarezack's home pagehttp://upsilon.cc/~zack/tags/firmware/zack's home pageikiwiki2011-03-13T22:17:22ZSqueeze, Debian, and the FSFhttp://upsilon.cc/~zack/blog/posts/2011/02/squeeze_debian_and_the_FSF/2011-03-13T22:17:22Z2011-02-21T12:31:09Z
<p>Short version: <q><em>Dear <a href="http://www.fsf.org">FSF</a>,
thanks for <a href=
"http://www.fsf.org/news/debian-squeeze-makes-key-progress-toward-being-a-fully-free-distribution">
your appreciation</a> of Debian Squeeze achievements in getting rid
of non-free firmware blobs. We still disagree on the overall
freeness assessment of Debian, but I'm positive that steps like
this one can further future collaboration, in the interest of both
projects</em></q>.</p>
<p>Long version follows.</p>
<hr />
<p>Historically, the relationships among Debian and the FSF have
gone through mixed fortune (and that's quite an euphemism). On the
one hand, Debian is committed to <a href=
"http://www.debian.org/social_contract">100% Free Software</a>, is
an open project explicitly inspired by <a href=
"http://www.debian.org/intro/about">"the spirit of GNU"</a>, has
been sponsored by FSF in its infancy, and properly calls itself
<a href=
"http://www.debian.org/intro/cooperation.html">"GNU/Linux"</a> (or
even "GNU/kFreeBSD"). On the other hand, Debian is the project who
considers the GNU FDL license to be only <a href=
"http://www.debian.org/News/2006/20060316">conditionally free</a>
and which is not considered to be an entirely Free system <a href=
"http://www.gnu.org/distros/free-distros.html">according to
FSF</a>.<br />
So much for the history corner.</p>
<p>As a long time member of the Debian Project, as well as an
FSF(E) fellow, I've always felt a bit sad about this state of
affairs. Not because the two projects should have aligned goals;
they clearly focus on different aspects of the quest for a Free
(Software) world. Not even because they should agree on how to
build a Free distribution: history has shown that FSF
<em>technical</em> positions do not always get along with Debian's
more "pragmatic" style, as embodied by point 5 of the <a href=
"http://www.debian.org/social_contract">Social Contract</a>.
Rather, my sadness is rooted in the belief that not getting along
have encouraged duplication of efforts which could have been easily
avoided (e.g. multiple distributions concurrently freeing up
kernels).</p>
<p>Furthermore, I'm more and more convinced that Debian nowadays
enjoys a rather privileged position among Free Software vendors.
Indeed, even though GNU/Linux distributions have reached a
popularity we didn't dare to imagine 15 years ago or so, most
distributions are under the direct or indirect control of
commercial vendors. Those commercial vendors play a very important
role in the promotion of Free Software. For instance, they are
structured in ways that enable them to seal OEM deals with hardware
manufacturers to sell computers with GNU/Linux pre-installed.
Commercial vendors, by their own nature, are also in general better
at marketing than non-commercial vendors. On the flip side however,
commercial vendors are not yet relevant enough to drive proprietary
drivers out of the market and, as a consequence, cannot yet afford
not to support hardware which need such proprietary bits to work.
Among mainstream GNU/Linux distributions<small>[1]</small> Debian
is one of the very few vendors—if not the only one—that is both
<a href=
"http://upsilon.cc/~zack/blog/posts/2011/01/who_the_bloody_hell_cares_about_Debian/">very
relevant</a> and, thanks to its independence, can afford taking
Free Software's side: no commercial urgency can force Debian to
negotiate on that. That is quite an asset to be used in the
promotion of Free Software, especially to a public that is
interested in and willing to understand what Free Software really
is about. Such an "aware" public is on the rise as of lately,
together with the general awareness increase of risks entailed by
living a digital life, when that life is not under our control
(think, as an example, at how often the "Facebook privacy debate"
has hit mainstream medias in the last year). The "aware" public is
the natural target of <em>both</em> Debian and the FSF. Dividing it
would not serve well the cause of Free Software.</p>
<p>With all that in mind, last August I took the chance of being on
the "right" side of the Atlantic Ocean for <a href=
"http://debconf10.debconf.org">DebConf10</a>, to discuss possible
venues of collaboration among Debian and the FSF. I sat down and
discussed at length with <a href="http://wjsullivan.net/">John
Sullivan</a>, who I happen to know for his Debian involvement, in
his capacities of FSF representative and <a href=
"http://www.fsf.org/about/leadership.html#johns">operations
manager</a>. We discussed various topics, with the intention of
bringing them up to the respective communities<small>[2]</small>.
Then, inevitably, we ended up talking about the overall freeness of
Debian and his <a href=
"http://www.gnu.org/distros/common-distros.html#Debian">exclusion</a>
from FSF listing of Free systems. (FSF is of course entitled to
such judgements, pretty much as Debian is entitled to its own
judgements on FSF licenses. Nevertheless those judgements
contribute to dividing our public and might lead to wasteful
duplication of efforts, where Free Software could better be served
by collaboration.) The main ground for exclusion from that list
used to be the compromises Debian has made in <a href=
"http://www.debian.org/vote/2006/vote_007">the</a> <a href=
"http://www.debian.org/vote/2008/vote_003">past</a> about non-free
firmware blobs. But, as I pointed out back in August, <a href=
"http://upsilon.cc/~zack/blog/posts/2010/12/squeeze_your_non-free_firmware_away/">those
compromises would have been gone</a> starting with Squeeze, making
that argument moot.</p>
<p>Today—6 months later—I'm delighted to cheer at FSF's decision to
<a href=
"http://www.fsf.org/news/debian-squeeze-makes-key-progress-toward-being-a-fully-free-distribution">
publicly recognize</a> the achievements Debian has delivered with
Squeeze.<br />
Thanks! It's a nice gesture that I've very much appreciated. I'm
confident steps like this one will help future collaboration if, on
both sides, we will be able to spot actual venues for
collaboration.</p>
<p>Needlessly to say, I still disagree with the overall FSF
assessment of Debian <a href=
"http://www.gnu.org/distros/common-distros.html#Debian">non-freeness</a>.
Apparently, it still stands on the basis that <q><em>Debian also
provides a repository of nonfree software […] [which] is “not part
of the Debian system.” […] but users would be hard-pressed to make
a distinction</em></q> and that <q><em>people can readily learn
about software available through it by browsing Debian's online
package database</em></q>. I respect the principle of non
advertising non-free software and I even agree that it is a good
principle. But unfortunately it's also a very blurry principle on
which, in my opinion, Debian actually scores very well. No non-free
software is offered to users by Debian; it's just for users that
really <em>want</em> to have non-free software (or <em>need</em>
to, in order to run a Free OS on their computers), that Debian
tries to stay out of their way. For the "aware" public discussed
above, I think it's much better to draw the line where software
freedom ends and use that line to explain what does crossing it
entails, than locking them up pretending non-free software do not
exist. But fair enough: for the time being, I guess, we will need
to agree to disagree on this one.</p>
<p>Getting a little bit closer in the occasion of the Squeeze
release is still an important step forward. It's up to each of us
now to seek out initiatives which attract the interest of both
projects and that can benefit from synergies.</p>
<hr />
<p><small>[1] Sorry, I've no decent definition of "<em>mainstream
distribution</em>" to offer, besides folklore and well-established
distribution <a href="http://distrowatch.com/">review</a> <a href=
"http://lwn.net/Distributions/#lead">sites</a>. (Heck, I don't even
have a decent definition of "well-established distribution review
site" to offer!).</small><br />
<small>[2] which hasn't happened yet, due to the proverbial amount
of available spare time.</small><br /></p>
squeeze your non-free firmware awayhttp://upsilon.cc/~zack/blog/posts/2010/12/squeeze_your_non-free_firmware_away/2010-12-16T08:37:06Z2010-12-15T23:05:20Z
<h1>Debian 6.0 Squeeze to be released with completely free
Kernel(s)</h1>
<p>Today <a href="http://www.debian.org">we</a> have announced
that, starting with the upcoming release of Squeeze, <a href=
"http://www.debian.org/News/2010/20101215">Debian will be even
Free-er</a>. Exceptions to the <a href=
"http://www.debian.org/social_contract#guidelines">DFSG</a> for
non-free Linux firmware blobs, which have been granted in the past,
will no longer be granted. Starting from Squeeze, Debian will be
Free the bottom up, no matter where your own definition of
<q>software</q> ends.</p>
<p>The news has been known for a while within the Debian
development community, but we had the pleasure of sharing that with
our users only today. According to the reaction on <a href=
"http://identi.ca/notice/60464473">identi.ca</a>, where the news
quickly made into the most popular notices, people are
<em>enthusiastic</em> about the news and that in turn is very
rewarding.</p>
<p>If you are as happy and proud about this achievement as I am,
please direct your <strong>kudos</strong> to all the teams who made
this possible:</p>
<ul>
<li>the <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianKernel">Debian kernel
team</a> who worked for the past 2 release cycles, together with
Linux upstream, to split free-vs-non-free firmware bits and monitor
new releases to avoid freedom regressions;</li>
<li>the <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/Teams/DebianCd">Debian CD
team</a> who basically "forked" different media production lines,
for different user needs wrt firmware;</li>
<li>the <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/Teams/DebianInstaller">d-i
team</a> who added, long ago, support for loading user-provided
firmware at installation time;</li>
<li>whoever else I might have forgotten who contributed to this
result <small>(feel free to leave a comment to refresh my
memory!)</small>.</li>
</ul>
<p>Having been trol<sup>W</sup> asked several times in the past
about the "real freeness" of Debian at events, talks, and the like,
I consider this episode to be a very nice story to tell. While we
have granted exceptions for Linux firmware at the time of <a href=
"http://www.debian.org/vote/2006/vote_007">Etch</a> and <a href=
"http://www.debian.org/vote/2008/vote_003">Lenny</a> releases,
during this time Debian people have worked, <strong>together with
upstream</strong>, to make this final result possible. All this
work has improved the situation not only for Debian users, but also
for users of those derivatives which rely upon Debian kernels.</p>
<p>Nonetheless, don't expect us to live under a rock. We know that
there are users out there who need nasty non-free firmware bits to
boot their machines or to access the Internet. That is why <a href=
"http://blog.einval.com/2010/12/15#CDs_with_firmware">separate
images with firmware included</a> are being provided, although they
are not part of Debian and are properly "discriminated": they
should be looked for explicitly by users and can't be supported to
the same extent of Free firmware, simply because we (as anybody
else other than the hardware manufacturer) do not have access to
the corresponding source code.</p>
<p>This separation is a perfect example of the
<strong>pragmatism</strong> embodied by the <a href=
"http://www.debian.org/social_contract">Debian Social contract</a>:
Debian consists of 100% Free software; at the same time, Debian
<em>enables</em> its users to make their own choices in terms of
Freedom, being explicit about what users risk if they cross the
boundaries of DFSG. <strong>Awareness</strong> is the key here and
I find it to be a very honest yet effective way of explaining to
the world why Free Software is better.</p>
<p>This is not the end of the story though, as we need to document
this change properly to both increase awareness and avoid leaving
users in the dark. A couple of bugs filed today might benefit from
the <strong>help of some kind doc-writers</strong>: <a href=
"http://bugs.debian.org/607191">Debian bug #607191</a> (documenting
the firmware change in the Squeeze release notes) and <a href=
"http://bugs.debian.org/607193">Debian bug #607193</a> (documenting
the firmware change on the website).</p>