[kernel] r7565 - people/jurij

[Jurij Smakov]

Author: jurij-guest
Date: Sat Sep 30 19:48:42 2006
New Revision: 7565

Added:
   people/jurij/firmware-position-statement.txt

Log:
Draft of firmware position statement.


Added: people/jurij/firmware-position-statement.txt
==============================================================================
--- (empty file)
+++ people/jurij/firmware-position-statement.txt	Sat Sep 30 19:48:42 2006
@@ -0,0 +1,39 @@
+Debian kernel team identifies the following three types of firmware, currently
+found in the Linux kernel:
+
+1. Sourceless binary blobs with no license, no explicit permission to redistribute, or
+   an explicit prohibition to redistribute. 
+
+   This category currently includes the dabusb, dgrs, emi62, keyspan, smctr,
+   cops, emi26, and 3c359 drivers. Removal of these drivers will have minimal
+   impact on the users, as neither of them are popular or likely to be required
+   during the installation.
+   
+2. Sourceless binary blobs distributed under GPL.
+   
+   This situation has been interpreted as a violation of the terms of GPL, which
+   requires the distribution to be accompanied by the source code. Removal of
+   firmware in this category will cause effective removal of a large number of
+   important drivers, resulting in a severe negative impact on our users. 
+
+3. Binary blobs violating DFSG for other reasons.
+
+   This category includes firmware which contains obfuscated source, or is not
+   allowed to be modified. While less numerous than category 2, removal of 
+   drivers in this category will also have a significant negative
+   impact on our users. 
+
+It has been agreed within Debian kernel team, that the firmware in category 1
+is not acceptable in Debian. It is the intention of the kernel team to prune the
+affected drivers from the upstream tarball.
+
+While we continuosly strive to improve the situation with DFSG-compliance of kernel
+packages, and there has been progress on it since Sarge release, we recognize that
+fixing all the problems with drivers falling into categories 2 and 3 is not feasible
+in the etch release time frame. Alternative solutions, like removal of the affected
+drivers would have a severe negative impact on our users, and would be detrimentary
+to the Debian's goal of advancement of free software. Therefore, we propose to accept
+the drivers from categories 2 and 3 in the kernel packages for etch, given that an
+agreement can be achieved with release and ftp-master teams, or the issue is
+resolved by way of General Resolution.
+