Måns Rullgård <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > A firmware image is not software to the system on which Debian runs. > What it is to another system (e.g. some PCI card) is irrelevant.
While I disagree, I don't see why we're getting hung up on this software thing. Note that the only uses of the word "software" in the social contract are the phrase "free software" and in references to a document that's titled the "Debian Free Software Guidelines". Fundamentally, whether something is software or not is *not* *the* *issue*. We believe that everything we ship and everything it depends on should be provided with a certain set of freedoms. You're currently claiming that that set of freedoms is no longer necessary because the code is located on the other side of some bus. However, you haven't said /why/ those freedoms are no longer necessary. What is it about that code that makes the ability to modify and distribute modified varients less interesting? "It's difficult" is not a convincing argument. The number of people willing to take advantage of that freedom directly may be smaller, but I'm willing to wager that it's larger than the number of people who know some of the languages we distribute code written in is. And that's still not the point - the freedom to modify and distribute code is useful to non-coders because they can hire someone to do this for them. The freedom to modify and distribute modified firmware is useful to me because I can pay someone other than the original manufacturer to fix my irritating hardware bugs[1]. Why is this arbitrary line a good place to say "Oh, we don't care any more"? [1] I've got a soundcard that has irritating interference at certain frequencies. This appears to be due to bugs in the dsp firmware. The manufacturer is uninterested. -- Matthew Garrett | [EMAIL PROTECTED]