On Tue, Feb 24, 2026 at 09:19:20AM -0800, Russ Allbery wrote: > Wouter Verhelst <[email protected]> writes: > > > I don't think that's true. I think the majority of our community does > > want to promote fully free hardware and firmware, but I think there is a > > difference on *strategy* in getting to that place. > > Yes. I want to promote fully free hardware and firmware. However, given > that very little hardware that does not require non-free firmware exists > at present, I don't believe Debian is all that useful of a vehicle for > promoting fully free hardware and firmware at the current stage. > > That movement is still at the phase of trying to make such hardware and > get people to buy it, and Debian is not a hardware company so we cannot > contribute to that effort beyond ensuring that Debian supports what > hardware does exist. I certainly support the latter effort, and I wish the > free hardware movement the best of luck, but it's not mature enough for > Debian to, for instance, recommend it to users who expect a normal > computing experience.
I agree that it's premature for Debian to recommend any sort of free hardware at present, and that the amount of stuff we can do to promote free hardware and firmware is limited at present. That doesn't mean that there's absolutely nothing we could do; as and when opportunities present themselves, we should do what we can. This will be limited though. > > I want us to *not pretend*. I do *not* think it is good enough to > > pretend it is not there. I want us to declare that non-free firmware is > > not free, regardless of whether it's stored in a ROM chip on a device or > > on a general-purpose storage medium. And I want to state, personally, > > that in my opinion, using non-free firmware that's installed inside a > > ROM chip on a device is *not* a better situation than having it on the > > general-purpose storage of the computer in which it's mounted -- because > > the latter means you can, theoretically, replace that firmware with > > actually free firmware. If the non-free firmware is installed in a ROM > > chip, you can't. > > Precisely. > > What appears to have happened from my perspective is that some advocates > of free software and firmware have decided that the solution to the > significant difficulties of making such hardware commercially viable is to > lie about other hardware that doesn't meet that criteria but pretends to. > And I find that morally offensive, and I'm not interested in seeing Debian > support advocacy tactics that are based on lying to our users. Same. > Just admit that nearly all hardware that exists today has non-free > firmware as part of the hardware design and that, as with the early days > of free software, we face a long and uphill struggle to change that, and I > am on board and support you. I am fully onboard with embracing *partial* > efforts as well; I'm quite happy to celebrate the efforts to get rid of > some non-free firmware even though some still remains. Early work here is > necessarily going to be partial. > > But don't, as the saying goes, piss on my leg and tell me it's raining. > Don't disable the ability to update non-free firmware and then claim that > magically makes the non-free firmware not exist. That's not honest > advocacy; that's telling people that they must believe 2 + 2 = 5 for > ideological purity reasons. Exactly. I get a sense that you and I are largely aligned on this. One thing that I think we can and should do, though, is push back on the narrative that, just because we don't agree with how the FSF is trying to tackle the non-free firmware issue, we are therefore morally deficient and are not properly supporting the cause of free software. The issue of non-free firmware is multifaceted, and while the FSF has one position (which I can kind of understand if I squint sideways while drunk), I don't think it's the only valid option. Because the FSF lists us as a distribution they do not support, we do occasionally get well-meaning people who want to "fix" Debian, not realising that the problem is not one of lack of good-will, but rather a fundamental disagreement with the FSF. I think it would be good if we had an explanation of why we do what we do that we could point such people to. -- "I never had a C in history!" "Yeah, but there was so much less of it when you were my age!" -- Joe Brockmeier recounting a conversation with his father, cfgmgmtcamp 2026, Ghent
