On Tue, Dec 14, 2004 at 10:58:52AM +0100, Tollef Fog Heen wrote: > * Simon Richter > > | > (If the firmware used by this tool really is Free Software, my > | > apologies. However, in that case, the firmware still does not appear to > | > be available in Debian.) > | > | The tool is generic, hence I cannot make any assumptions on the > | freeness of any firmware that may be loaded with it once the mISDN > | stack reaches a non-beta state.
It's fine for software in main to be able to do stuff with non-free data; that's not the issue. The question is whether there *exists* any free data that it works with, and if not, whether that's a problem. > You might also want to look into the ruling from tech-ctte on 119517 > (referenced in the bug logs) wrt "dependency" when it's a minor part > on a package's purpose. That's an issue of "Depends:", not of the Social Contract's "never make the system depend on an item of non-free software", which I believe is the issue. (My understanding--which may well be wrong, of course--is that the tech-ctte's authority does not extend to the Social Contract or the DFSG.) -- Glenn Maynard
