Um.. just to reiterate what's going on here: For Debian to distribute the microcode at all, we need permission to distribute it[1].
For Debian to distribute the microcode *as a part of Debian*, we'd need the microcode to meet the DFSG. [No one (other than Thomas Bushnell) is advocating that the microcode be distributed under the DFSG.] For the microcode loader to be distributed *as a part of Debian* the microcode loader, of course, needs to meet the DFSG. However, note that if the only use for the microcode loader is to load the non-free microcode, we'll wind up putting it into contrib. Contrib is an official part of Debian, but it's a part that is useless without some non-free element (which Debian might or might not distribute). Which brings us back to the first point: If Debian is to be allowed to distribute the microcode then Debian has to be granted permission to distribute it. It's really not any more complicted than that. -- Raul [1] different people have different ideas of what Debian is -- and that none of them are likely to be relevant in any legal context[2] [2] except maybe in a court such as Delaware's Chancery Court (http://courts.state.de.us/chancery), which in some senses is more of a moral court than a legal court. But most of Debian is outside the jurisdiction of this court, so this is a fairly trivial comment.
