kernel-libre (hopefully 100% Free) for Fedora 8 and rawhide

[Alexandre Oliva]

On Mar 23, 2008, Chris Snook <csnook at redhat.com> wrote:

> Alexandre Oliva wrote:
>> Err...  This would mean that whoever distributes the kernel binaries
>> would be required to ship the corresponding sources containing
>> non-Free Software, which is precisely the sort of thing I'd like to
>> avoid, such that I and others who refuse to distribute non-Free
>> Software can promote Fedora at least to some extent.

> Pardon my ignorance, but I honestly don't see a risk in shipping
> *sources* which contain hex-coded firmware blobs that have been
> licensed for distribution,

This is not about the risk.  This is about not distributing non-Free
software.  For me, it's not a matter of licensing, not a matter of
license compatibility.  It's a matter of not supporting the
distribution of non-Free Software, no matter how hidden it is, or how
important it is for some.

I'm not taking away anyone's choices.  I'm just adding means for
people to run and distribute Fedora while being more assured they're
not using or distributing any code they got from Fedora that is
non-Free Software.

> If you'd like that incentive to carry any weight, perhaps you should
> write a patch that has a chance of getting accepted into Fedora
> proper.

A patch won't fix this.  People keep on adding firmwares to the
upstream kernel.  It has to be a continous monitoring and maintenance
process.  It's painful, I know.  I'm willing to do it, to keep a 100%
Free kernel.  I'm willing to do it for myself, even if it's not
integrated in Fedora.

Now, if Fedora doesn't take it, it will say something about Fedora's
stance towards freedom.  I know I differ from Fedora in this regard
already, so that's no big deal.

> Personally, I just want to install the package called "kernel".
> Unless I have an absolutely compelling reason, I'm not going out of my
> way for anything else, be it "kernel-libre" or "kernel-firmware".

I respect your position, even though I disagree with it.  That's one
of the reasons why I've started this as a separate kernel-libre
package, rather than asking Fedora to drop all the non-Free firmware
in the kernel and outside, out of coherence with its stated mission.

However, some people find the existence of non-Free Software a
sufficiently compelling reason to want a 100% Free kernel, and then a
100% Free distro.  I wish Fedora could be it.  If it doesn't want to
be, that's fine, there's always BLAG.

-- 
Alexandre Oliva         http://www.lsd.ic.unicamp.br/~oliva/
FSF Latin America Board Member         http://www.fsfla.org/
Red Hat Compiler Engineer   aoliva@{redhat.com, gcc.gnu.org}
Free Software Evangelist  oliva@{lsd.ic.unicamp.br, gnu.org}