Forwarded following a bounce to debian-vote for completeness Date: Tue, 23 Aug 2022 14:03:57 +0000 From: "Andrew M.A. Cater" <amaca...@einval.com> To: Simon Josefsson <si...@josefsson.org> Cc: debian-v...@einval.com Subject: Re: Changing how we handle non-free firmware
On Tue, Aug 23, 2022 at 10:53:46AM +0200, Simon Josefsson wrote: > "Andrew M.A. Cater" <amaca...@einval.com> writes: > > > In practice, the free installer is useless on its own. > > That is not my experience -- I'm using Debian through its installer on a > number of laptops, desktops and servers, and for my purposes it works > fine and in general I have not needed to enable non-free/contrib for > hardware support. You may have other purposes for which it does not > work, but that doesn't make it useless for everyone, and there are > alternatives available to solve your use-case (unofficial non-free > installer) that doesn't entail the cost of abandoning the free software > ideals of the Debian project. > > /Simon Hi Simon, I don't think you quite picked up on my meaning. The free installer is absolutely useless _because_ you are already using a machine containing a bunch of firmware (that you may or may not know anything about) - disk drives, basic drivers for graphics cards. If the free installer works, it's because you already have firmware. Non-free firmware often adds a better driver - see Intel/AMD microcode / amdgpu - which extends the minimal functionality you have. Microcode is there even if you never upgrade it, essentially, as is other firmware. Now we're in a situation where non-free firmware is absolutely required for basic functionality - without the Intel non-free firmware, you can't run sound for a visually impaired user to install if you have some Intel laptops. That VI user will *never* be able to install Debian. The new installer would include optional non-free firmware needed to make the machine work. It's still not including non-free in Debian - but it's making a machine usable. The free installer is ideal for virtualisation only because it's sitting on top of a bunch of idealised hardware. All the best, as ever, Andy Cater ----- End forwarded message -----
