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

[Jeff Spaleta]

On Tue, Mar 25, 2008 at 7:56 AM, Dave Jones <davej at redhat.com> wrote:

> This "well my system is ok, screw everyone else" approach is what I find
> so fundamentally broken in this idea.  Especially as the people advocating
> for this aren't those who get to deal with the fallout when users start
> filing bugs.
>

I believe the stated goal is to package things in such a way that Alexandre
can then propose a separate spin that is libre by his definition. but has
the potential to carry the Fedora marks.   The goal isn't to mandate that
the general purpose spins are to have this stuff stripped out.  I don't
interpret it as "screw everyone else."  I interpret it as "Give me enough
flexibility so that I can screw myself, and so that I can encourage others
to screw themselves by choosing to use the libre spin"

There's been no effort so far to lobby that the default install for any
Fedora spin should end up tasting different.  The firmware would still be
installed by default for other Fedora spins.  The question is can things be
packaged such that we can give Alexandre the flexibility he is looking for
to produce a libre spin in a manner that is sustainable.

I'm comfortable with Alexandre's ability to keep his proposed implementation
maintained through rebasing off of the main Fedora kernel.  What he's
proposing will technically work to meet the stated goals.  This alternative
kernel image, can be installed in a libre spin, and doesn't need to be used
by any other Fedora spin.  But if that solution is not appropriate and fesco
wants to see the work integrated into our kernel package, then I'm pretty
sure Alexandre is going to need help with that, because its a higher burden.

I will say that I'm disappointed that he so far been reluctant to drive the
issue upstream.  Regardless of the technical implementation specifics on how
we would do it or not, I'd be more comfortable with any downstream changes
in a kernel we ship being maintained in Fedora if I knew that someone was
making a consistent effort to move the changes forward in the upstream
codebase, so that whatever changes are in Fedora-space are temporary.  If we
separate out the firmware...just in Fedora...that's a long term commitment
to maintenance that will undoubtedly grow over time.

-jef
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