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

[Alexandre Oliva]

On Mar 25, 2008, Alan Cox <alan at redhat.com> wrote:

>> There's a fundamental ethical difference that I've already explained
>> but you seem to be unwilling to acknowledge, let alone understand.
>> This is where I stop taking part in arguing this point with you.

> I think we disagree because I'm looking at the whole systems question
> of how to get Linux and free software to work

That's possible.  I'm looking at the whole society question of how to
recover the freedoms people deserve.

>> 1. Free Software for non-Free interpreters is acceptable: someone could
>> create a Free interpreter and then anyone could use both in freedom.

> So you don't oppose us shipping microcode updates then ?

Your analogy is upside-down.

The "interpreter" is the processor, and the microcode is definitely
non-Free Software.

>> 2. because without the exclusion it would have been impossible to
>> distribute these Free programs in binary form in the first place,
>> before some completely Free operating system started.  And then,
>> there's always a possibility that someone writes a drop-in replacement
>> library that would enable the binary to be used in freedom.

> #2 is my argument for the firmware essentially

The key difference here is that the code for the system library was
put in the user's computer by the user, straight from the OS vendor
that the user chose, not from the distributor of the Free program
linked with the library.

So, again, it appears to me that the analogy is faulty.

> - and I'm definitely in favour of it being a separate package to the
> kernel so people know which is which.

Good, do you know people who do care about this non-Free firmware to
work, who have skills needed and who can test it to make some effort
to this end?

-- 
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}