[fedora-arm] ARM and shipping of various binary firmware / boot bits

[DJ Delorie]

> I think you're both missing the point here. The intent of that
> clause was to say that Firmware $FOO is necessary for Free Software
> $BAR to work.

I'm confused about where the line is drawn...

We have a case where firmware "MLO" is necessary for the Free Software
"Linux kernel" to work (or even have a chance to work, for various
definitions of "work" ;).

An example of a Proprietary binary blob we have is network drivers.
While there are network cards that work without blobs, some cards
require them, and we ship them so that the network stack can use those
cards.  Strictly speaking, these blobs are optional - Fedora will run
just fine without these proprietary blobs, and the network stack will
run just fine without them as long as you use other network devices,
yet they're allowed.

The case we're talking about here is a Free Software binary blob
without which absolutely nothing will work - the Fedora kernel won't
even boot without these blobs, and the hardware absolutely requires
them to do *anything* other than be a brick, and the blob has to be on
the storage medium on which Fedora is installed.

I'm sure I don't understand the considerations involved, but it seems
that including a mandatory *free software* blob should be more readily
acceptable than an optional *proprietary* blob, yet the reverse seems
to be happening.  Could you clarify the reasoning behind this?

Thanks,
DJ