11 ms·

Debian votes to include proprietary firmware, amends social contract

119 points by pabs3 4y ago

raxxorraxor 4y ago
I think some compromises might be necessary but I think the insistence on open source drivers is otherwise pretty important. Yes, mobil OS are successful, but they still suck. The hardware and software situation restricts users massively. I wouldn't ever want that for a desktop computer.
- crote 4y ago
  The definition of what a "driver" is has been slowly changing, though. Initially, hardware was just a bunch of transistors performing a fixed function. Then they got microcontrollers which were programmed once in the factory. Then the microcontrollers were user-programmable - which was a massive pain until we got fwupd. Now the microcontrollers don't have built-in firmware but require you to provide it on startup. From the driver side, nothing really changed. A driver is still a piece of code you use to talk to your hardware: it translates between your OS and whatever weird protocols your devices are using. Drivers have always had to perform magic incantations to get the hardware working, writing the right bytes to the right locations in the right order. The only thing that changed is that those incantations are now a few kilobytes long. And yet, despite nothing really changing, your OS now technically contains proprietary firmware blobs...
  - raxxorraxor 4y ago
    True, that wasn't precisely stated. I honestly believe that these blobs wouldn't need to be proprietary. I work on proprietary code for embedded systems too and we don't release the source either. But if it were leaked there is not really a threat to our intellectual property. Maybe the main benefit really is security through obscurity. We don't do general hardware though and it wouldn't be of much interest, but it would be nice to get manufacturers to open up here. Not even the source for the blobs, but some documentation to interface the firmware perhaps. Sure, it is always some work if you release something to the public or maybe parts of your software need licences themselves, but if possible I would expect this to net secondary benefits for the manufacturers. If people know your hardware, they might use it in their applications as well... Just getting manufacturers here to open up would still be nice and I believe they could benefit as well.
jgaa 4y ago
I don't think allowing "binary blobs" by default is a good idea. Allowing binaries built from "non-free" but publicly available source code is less of a problem, at least to me.
- pabs3 4y ago
  Most firmware is either a binary blob without source, or has public freely licensed source code. There is nothing with "non-free" but publicly available source code. The Intel Sound Open Firmware is a weird mix though, public freely licensed source code but most of the hardware can only run Intel signed firmware binaries. https://github.com/thesofproject/sof/issues/5814 https://github.com/thesofproject/sof/issues/5814
  - jeff_carr 4y ago
    Some hardware firmware is a binary blob because THERE IS NO KNOWN WAY TO COMPILE IT. Certain chips are manufactured with an initialization code sequence that is generated very similarly to how an FPGA floor planning works. It should be made clear this Debian Vote is to include Proprietary Firmware in the installer so it is possible for new users to install and try Linux. If it's not in the installer, new users just perceive that free software / Linux just doesn't work at all. That doesn't help anyone.
    - devit 4y ago
      The source code to the tooling that generates the initialization code sequence along with all the input and configuration files and anything else needed to run it constitutes the source code of such a binary blob.
    - roenxi 4y ago
      > That doesn't help anyone. True enough, but Debian is trying to have a property - "this software is free!". If non-free stuff is included, it will no longer have that property. I'm not going to second guess the Debian project, they are being reasonable. But guarantees that the software is free are important. New users are all very well, but the experienced users who make up the bulk of Debian's audience don't want to be drilling down into a bug and winding up running in to proprietary code. The software is the way it is because it believes in freedom. Its successes are because it is free. If the point is to be cheap, go pirate windows or something.
choffee 4y ago
The full resolution is here: https://www.debian.org/vote/2022/vote_003#outcome https://www.debian.org/vote/2022/vote_003#outcome
neilv 4y ago
The tomshardware.com article says: > The proprietary software to be included takes the form of Binary Large Objects, or BLOBs. In the language of free software, this means proprietary device drivers distributed without their source code, as pure binary. But, in https://www.debian.org/vote/2022/vote_003 https://www.debian.org/vote/2022/vote_003 , I see no mention of closed drivers (i.e., code that runs on the Debian host machine) -- only of closed firmware (i.e., code that run on the component device itself). (Of course, though closed firmware can seem reasonable right now, it can get more complicated over time, such as by encouraging complexity to be in closed device firmware that otherwise could've been in open kernel/userland in the host. And encouraging closed firmware over open firmware. But, for now, closed firmware seems not nearly as bad for libre/open software as closed drivers and other closed software on the host. And I'll admit that I've recently specified a company standard workstation built upon Debian Stable with closed firmware blobs, pragmatically, because we needed WiFi with popular off-the-shelf laptops.)
- bscphil 4y ago
  Also, > We will include non-free firmware packages from the "non-free-firmware" section of the Debian archive on our official media (installer images and live images). The included firmware binaries will normally be enabled by default where the system determines that they are required, but where possible we will include ways for users to disable this at boot (boot menu option, kernel command line etc.). "Debian Votes to Include Proprietary Firmware" in the headline is misleading. The Debian distribution already contained this firmware (in an isolated repository). This vote seems to be about making it available by default on official media, making installation easier. This supersedes the previous approach, which as of this comment is still described here: https://wiki.debian.org/Firmware https://wiki.debian.org/Firmware
  - midislack 4y ago
    It's an accurate headline. The firmware under quesiton was NOT included before.
  - marcosdumay 4y ago
    Without extra explanation, "Debian" usually refers to the main section. If the headline is misleading in any way, it's because it implies inclusion into main. But I think the discussion is old and well known enough for it to not confuse anybody interested on the subject.
kaushikc 4y ago
They have been trying to get rid of Stallman last year. https://www.theregister.com/2021/04/19/debian_stallman_vote/ https://www.theregister.com/2021/04/19/debian_stallman_vote/
- blueflow 4y ago
  And the support letter got more signatures in the end.... which was an interesting outcome.
  - KennyBlanken 4y ago
    ...because one of the letters against Stallman stopped accepting signatures at three thousand people, but the "pro" Stallman letter never did. It included sixty open-source organizations were among those three thousand individuals. SUSE, Mozilla, GNOME, Creative Commons, X.org, etc. The point was made. A huge number of people and organizations wanted Stallman gone. Stallman literally said a sex-trafficked child wasn't a "rape victim", and this isn't the first time he's espoused, on technical mailing lists, that golly, 'age is just a number' when it comes to children having sex with adults. He's an infamous serial sexual harasser - for decades. Threatening to kill himself if women won't date him, hosting barely-clothed "cuddle puddles" on the bare mattress in his office at MIT, and women in his office building stuffing their offices full of house plants because Stallman was known to hate them, and it was the only thing that would make him leave women alone. When Redhat and others pulled funding, the board was clear they weren't interested in prudent governance of the organization, but solely about petulantly supporting their geek deity. His refusal to step down, and the board's refusal to remove him, irreparably harmed their reputation and finances.
    - daptaq 4y ago
      > ...because one of the letters against Stallman stopped accepting signatures at three thousand people, but the "pro" Stallman letter never did. It was always a hunch, but I suspected that part of the reason they stopped is that they reached a plateau, while the open letter was continuing to rise in popularity. https://linuxreviews.org/Grass-roots_Richard_Stallman_Support-Letter_Has_Reached_3600%2B_Signers https://linuxreviews.org/Grass-roots_Richard_Stallman_Suppor... Regarding the other accusations, my understanding is that they are unfounded or intentional misrepresentations https://stallmansupport.org/debunking-false-accusations-against-richard-stallman.html https://stallmansupport.org/debunking-false-accusations-agai... I have personally communicated with RMS, even privately, and see a discrepancy between the way he is portrayed and the way he behaves on a regular basis. Of course, I might have just caught his good and kind side, who knows? Either way, my impression remains that those who see him as bad want to see him as bad.
BiteCode_dev 4y ago
Would debian had done that 15 years ago, Ubuntu would probably not have existed.
- ploum 4y ago
  No. The main motivation behind Ubuntu (and its predecessors Knoppix, Mepis, UserLinux) was realizing that a knowledgeable person could get a nice, easy to use Debian desktop in a couple of hours and then let it in the hands of less knowledgeable persons. It was hard to install. On the other hand, you could boot a perfectly workable system from a live CD (Knoppix) but it was hard to install. So the motivation was: could we get the best of both worlds? Easy to launch/install and easy to use maintain once installed? This was also more or less coordinated with a huge shift in GNOME development where UX became the main goal and development switched to a 6 months based schedule. Detecting hardware was part of what was hard with Debian but was not seen the most important part. Having a nice coherent desktop at first boot was the goal. source : I was part of it.
  - BiteCode_dev 4y ago
    Hey, ploum, merci pour ces annees de plume et code francophone. On my side, I definitly kept ubuntu because that was the only distro that ran on my hardware on first try. I should not have implied that ubuntu would not have been launched, but rather that the story would have went very differently IMO.
    - ploum 4y ago
      To be fair, Ubuntu had a hard time with lot of hardware too at the time ;-) source : I ran Ubuntu Install Party at my local university and, for some laptops, I had to spend hours figuring out what to do. Situation is way better now for hardware (but Ubuntu became too full of bloat for my taste)
  - Kye 4y ago
    It's even embedded in the original tagline: "Linux for human beings"
vertis 4y ago
As much as Debian's prior policy is laudable it's caused it to have one hand tied behind it's back for the last 20+ years. The result has been distros existing that wouldn't exist otherwise. It turns out as a user I do need those things to work regardless of the manufacturers closed source drivers/firmware, and I want it to JustWork™. And yes, I know it was already available, but the default installation UX matters a lot.
- nerdponx 4y ago
  Could this also not have been fixed by running some tool to detect non-free hardware and alerting the user of the need to install one of these packages later?
  - wl 4y ago
    The big pain, historically, has been network device drivers.
  - wongarsu 4y ago
    Ubuntu does more or less does this. But the crucial step is having a checkbox in the installer to install the non-free drivers (that are shipped in the installation media). Otherwise you might have a computer with linux but no easy way to get a driver for your wifi chip to it.
  - untilted 4y ago
    One issue with that strategy is accessibility; e.g. a case that was actually cited at the onset of the discussion that lead to the vote are blind users that need specific firmware to use their audio interface, without which they simply cannot use the installer
  - HeyLaughingBoy 4y ago
    Yes, but I suspect that the vast majority of users would find this annoying. Back in the day when I was playing with Slackware, it would have been interesting and I wouldn't have minded in the least. But these days, if I'm installing a distro, it's because I'm being paid to do a job. And that job has nothing to do with the distro itself: that's just a hopefully minor step along the path. The fewer "just go do this one little thing" speedbumps I encounter, the better. Or I start to get frustrated and irritated and wonder if there isn't an easier way.
igtztorrero 4y ago
Great news ! That's the only problem with Debian, THANKS !!!
- jacooper 4y ago
  I mean important application being stuck at old version without security fixes is also a big problem, like Firefox and Thunderbird. Also Debian really has zero focus on the desktop, in general.
Thaxll 4y ago
I remember 15 years ago having to plug a USB stick with network driver on it after installing Debian so the server would connect to the network in the datacenter...
LordLotherak 4y ago
So, the only person in the world this will piss off, is Richard Stallman. Got it.
yieldcrv 4y ago
Oh, finally
guilhas 4y ago
Big fail for Debian to enable them by default. They could have kept the questions as before "We found this hardware that needs non-free, do you want to use it?" Otherwise this is catering for the new security chips like Microsoft Pluton or something... It is sad that they prefer to go for easy instead of keep putting pressure for companies to improve their hardware I will put a reminder to check Debian popularity in a year's time. My bet is it will go down, most desktop people used Debian for the schizophrenic thin line they toed with Freedom Software. Otherwise any other distribution is more up to date and usable for a modern desktop/laptop, this small change will do no difference
- creatonez 4y ago
  > They could have kept the questions as before "We found this hardware that needs non-free, do you want to use it?" This is exactly what they are doing. It will be disableable in grub, too, if you want to prevent the firmware from being used entirely.
  - guilhas 4y ago
    > The included firmware binaries will normally be enabled by default where the system determines that they are required, but where possible we will include ways for users to disable this at boot https://www.debian.org/vote/2022/vote_003 https://www.debian.org/vote/2022/vote_003 Lets hope so, but it doesn't look like to me, reading the proposal Maybe it is a matter of interpretation
passthejoe 4y ago
This makes it easier to get started with Debian. If the project, or motivated users want to detail exactly how to run Debian without nonfree firmware, that would be great. And just as the nonfree installer was available but kept slightly hidden (even though it's difficult to install on just about any laptop without it), I'm sure there will be Debian Developers motivated to continue providing a fully free installer for those who want it.
- passthejoe 4y ago
  Clarification: I know there are instructions in the Debian documentation on how to put nonfree firmware on a USB drive and to use that drive with the free installer, but it's so much easier to just use the nonfree installer if you're going to be using nonfree firmware. Why make it hard if you're using the bits anyway? That said, I'd love to see a lot more people writing about what hardware works with free firmware so we can decide if we want to go in that direction. I am all for that.

119 points by pabs3 4y ago

I think some compromises might be necessary but I think the insistence on open source drivers is otherwise pretty important. Yes, mobil OS are successful, but they still suck. The hardware and software situation restricts users massively. I wouldn't ever want that for a desktop computer.

crote 4y ago
The definition of what a "driver" is has been slowly changing, though. Initially, hardware was just a bunch of transistors performing a fixed function. Then they got microcontrollers which were programmed once in the factory. Then the microcontrollers were user-programmable - which was a massive pain until we got fwupd. Now the microcontrollers don't have built-in firmware but require you to provide it on startup. From the driver side, nothing really changed. A driver is still a piece of code you use to talk to your hardware: it translates between your OS and whatever weird protocols your devices are using. Drivers have always had to perform magic incantations to get the hardware working, writing the right bytes to the right locations in the right order. The only thing that changed is that those incantations are now a few kilobytes long. And yet, despite nothing really changing, your OS now technically contains proprietary firmware blobs...
- raxxorraxor 4y ago
  True, that wasn't precisely stated. I honestly believe that these blobs wouldn't need to be proprietary. I work on proprietary code for embedded systems too and we don't release the source either. But if it were leaked there is not really a threat to our intellectual property. Maybe the main benefit really is security through obscurity. We don't do general hardware though and it wouldn't be of much interest, but it would be nice to get manufacturers to open up here. Not even the source for the blobs, but some documentation to interface the firmware perhaps. Sure, it is always some work if you release something to the public or maybe parts of your software need licences themselves, but if possible I would expect this to net secondary benefits for the manufacturers. If people know your hardware, they might use it in their applications as well... Just getting manufacturers here to open up would still be nice and I believe they could benefit as well.

jgaa 4y ago

I don't think allowing "binary blobs" by default is a good idea. Allowing binaries built from "non-free" but publicly available source code is less of a problem, at least to me.

pabs3 4y ago
Most firmware is either a binary blob without source, or has public freely licensed source code. There is nothing with "non-free" but publicly available source code. The Intel Sound Open Firmware is a weird mix though, public freely licensed source code but most of the hardware can only run Intel signed firmware binaries. https://github.com/thesofproject/sof/issues/5814 https://github.com/thesofproject/sof/issues/5814
- jeff_carr 4y ago
  Some hardware firmware is a binary blob because THERE IS NO KNOWN WAY TO COMPILE IT. Certain chips are manufactured with an initialization code sequence that is generated very similarly to how an FPGA floor planning works. It should be made clear this Debian Vote is to include Proprietary Firmware in the installer so it is possible for new users to install and try Linux. If it's not in the installer, new users just perceive that free software / Linux just doesn't work at all. That doesn't help anyone.
  - devit 4y ago
    The source code to the tooling that generates the initialization code sequence along with all the input and configuration files and anything else needed to run it constitutes the source code of such a binary blob.
  - roenxi 4y ago
    > That doesn't help anyone. True enough, but Debian is trying to have a property - "this software is free!". If non-free stuff is included, it will no longer have that property. I'm not going to second guess the Debian project, they are being reasonable. But guarantees that the software is free are important. New users are all very well, but the experienced users who make up the bulk of Debian's audience don't want to be drilling down into a bug and winding up running in to proprietary code. The software is the way it is because it believes in freedom. Its successes are because it is free. If the point is to be cheap, go pirate windows or something.

choffee 4y ago

The full resolution is here: https://www.debian.org/vote/2022/vote_003#outcome https://www.debian.org/vote/2022/vote_003#outcome

neilv 4y ago

The tomshardware.com article says: > The proprietary software to be included takes the form of Binary Large Objects, or BLOBs. In the language of free software, this means proprietary device drivers distributed without their source code, as pure binary. But, in https://www.debian.org/vote/2022/vote_003 https://www.debian.org/vote/2022/vote_003 , I see no mention of closed drivers (i.e., code that runs on the Debian host machine) -- only of closed firmware (i.e., code that run on the component device itself). (Of course, though closed firmware can seem reasonable right now, it can get more complicated over time, such as by encouraging complexity to be in closed device firmware that otherwise could've been in open kernel/userland in the host. And encouraging closed firmware over open firmware. But, for now, closed firmware seems not nearly as bad for libre/open software as closed drivers and other closed software on the host. And I'll admit that I've recently specified a company standard workstation built upon Debian Stable with closed firmware blobs, pragmatically, because we needed WiFi with popular off-the-shelf laptops.)

bscphil 4y ago
Also, > We will include non-free firmware packages from the "non-free-firmware" section of the Debian archive on our official media (installer images and live images). The included firmware binaries will normally be enabled by default where the system determines that they are required, but where possible we will include ways for users to disable this at boot (boot menu option, kernel command line etc.). "Debian Votes to Include Proprietary Firmware" in the headline is misleading. The Debian distribution already contained this firmware (in an isolated repository). This vote seems to be about making it available by default on official media, making installation easier. This supersedes the previous approach, which as of this comment is still described here: https://wiki.debian.org/Firmware https://wiki.debian.org/Firmware
- midislack 4y ago
  It's an accurate headline. The firmware under quesiton was NOT included before.
- marcosdumay 4y ago
  Without extra explanation, "Debian" usually refers to the main section. If the headline is misleading in any way, it's because it implies inclusion into main. But I think the discussion is old and well known enough for it to not confuse anybody interested on the subject.

kaushikc 4y ago

They have been trying to get rid of Stallman last year. https://www.theregister.com/2021/04/19/debian_stallman_vote/ https://www.theregister.com/2021/04/19/debian_stallman_vote/

blueflow 4y ago
And the support letter got more signatures in the end.... which was an interesting outcome.
- KennyBlanken 4y ago
  ...because one of the letters against Stallman stopped accepting signatures at three thousand people, but the "pro" Stallman letter never did. It included sixty open-source organizations were among those three thousand individuals. SUSE, Mozilla, GNOME, Creative Commons, X.org, etc. The point was made. A huge number of people and organizations wanted Stallman gone. Stallman literally said a sex-trafficked child wasn't a "rape victim", and this isn't the first time he's espoused, on technical mailing lists, that golly, 'age is just a number' when it comes to children having sex with adults. He's an infamous serial sexual harasser - for decades. Threatening to kill himself if women won't date him, hosting barely-clothed "cuddle puddles" on the bare mattress in his office at MIT, and women in his office building stuffing their offices full of house plants because Stallman was known to hate them, and it was the only thing that would make him leave women alone. When Redhat and others pulled funding, the board was clear they weren't interested in prudent governance of the organization, but solely about petulantly supporting their geek deity. His refusal to step down, and the board's refusal to remove him, irreparably harmed their reputation and finances.
  - daptaq 4y ago
    > ...because one of the letters against Stallman stopped accepting signatures at three thousand people, but the "pro" Stallman letter never did. It was always a hunch, but I suspected that part of the reason they stopped is that they reached a plateau, while the open letter was continuing to rise in popularity. https://linuxreviews.org/Grass-roots_Richard_Stallman_Support-Letter_Has_Reached_3600%2B_Signers https://linuxreviews.org/Grass-roots_Richard_Stallman_Suppor... Regarding the other accusations, my understanding is that they are unfounded or intentional misrepresentations https://stallmansupport.org/debunking-false-accusations-against-richard-stallman.html https://stallmansupport.org/debunking-false-accusations-agai... I have personally communicated with RMS, even privately, and see a discrepancy between the way he is portrayed and the way he behaves on a regular basis. Of course, I might have just caught his good and kind side, who knows? Either way, my impression remains that those who see him as bad want to see him as bad.

BiteCode_dev 4y ago

Would debian had done that 15 years ago, Ubuntu would probably not have existed.

ploum 4y ago
No. The main motivation behind Ubuntu (and its predecessors Knoppix, Mepis, UserLinux) was realizing that a knowledgeable person could get a nice, easy to use Debian desktop in a couple of hours and then let it in the hands of less knowledgeable persons. It was hard to install. On the other hand, you could boot a perfectly workable system from a live CD (Knoppix) but it was hard to install. So the motivation was: could we get the best of both worlds? Easy to launch/install and easy to use maintain once installed? This was also more or less coordinated with a huge shift in GNOME development where UX became the main goal and development switched to a 6 months based schedule. Detecting hardware was part of what was hard with Debian but was not seen the most important part. Having a nice coherent desktop at first boot was the goal. source : I was part of it.
- BiteCode_dev 4y ago
  Hey, ploum, merci pour ces annees de plume et code francophone. On my side, I definitly kept ubuntu because that was the only distro that ran on my hardware on first try. I should not have implied that ubuntu would not have been launched, but rather that the story would have went very differently IMO.
  - ploum 4y ago
    To be fair, Ubuntu had a hard time with lot of hardware too at the time ;-) source : I ran Ubuntu Install Party at my local university and, for some laptops, I had to spend hours figuring out what to do. Situation is way better now for hardware (but Ubuntu became too full of bloat for my taste)
- Kye 4y ago
  It's even embedded in the original tagline: "Linux for human beings"

vertis 4y ago

As much as Debian's prior policy is laudable it's caused it to have one hand tied behind it's back for the last 20+ years. The result has been distros existing that wouldn't exist otherwise. It turns out as a user I do need those things to work regardless of the manufacturers closed source drivers/firmware, and I want it to JustWork™. And yes, I know it was already available, but the default installation UX matters a lot.

nerdponx 4y ago
Could this also not have been fixed by running some tool to detect non-free hardware and alerting the user of the need to install one of these packages later?
- wl 4y ago
  The big pain, historically, has been network device drivers.
- wongarsu 4y ago
  Ubuntu does more or less does this. But the crucial step is having a checkbox in the installer to install the non-free drivers (that are shipped in the installation media). Otherwise you might have a computer with linux but no easy way to get a driver for your wifi chip to it.
- untilted 4y ago
  One issue with that strategy is accessibility; e.g. a case that was actually cited at the onset of the discussion that lead to the vote are blind users that need specific firmware to use their audio interface, without which they simply cannot use the installer
- HeyLaughingBoy 4y ago
  Yes, but I suspect that the vast majority of users would find this annoying. Back in the day when I was playing with Slackware, it would have been interesting and I wouldn't have minded in the least. But these days, if I'm installing a distro, it's because I'm being paid to do a job. And that job has nothing to do with the distro itself: that's just a hopefully minor step along the path. The fewer "just go do this one little thing" speedbumps I encounter, the better. Or I start to get frustrated and irritated and wonder if there isn't an easier way.

igtztorrero 4y ago

Great news ! That's the only problem with Debian, THANKS !!!

jacooper 4y ago
I mean important application being stuck at old version without security fixes is also a big problem, like Firefox and Thunderbird. Also Debian really has zero focus on the desktop, in general.

Thaxll 4y ago

I remember 15 years ago having to plug a USB stick with network driver on it after installing Debian so the server would connect to the network in the datacenter...

LordLotherak 4y ago

So, the only person in the world this will piss off, is Richard Stallman. Got it.

yieldcrv 4y ago

Oh, finally

guilhas 4y ago

Big fail for Debian to enable them by default. They could have kept the questions as before "We found this hardware that needs non-free, do you want to use it?" Otherwise this is catering for the new security chips like Microsoft Pluton or something... It is sad that they prefer to go for easy instead of keep putting pressure for companies to improve their hardware I will put a reminder to check Debian popularity in a year's time. My bet is it will go down, most desktop people used Debian for the schizophrenic thin line they toed with Freedom Software. Otherwise any other distribution is more up to date and usable for a modern desktop/laptop, this small change will do no difference

creatonez 4y ago
> They could have kept the questions as before "We found this hardware that needs non-free, do you want to use it?" This is exactly what they are doing. It will be disableable in grub, too, if you want to prevent the firmware from being used entirely.
- guilhas 4y ago
  > The included firmware binaries will normally be enabled by default where the system determines that they are required, but where possible we will include ways for users to disable this at boot https://www.debian.org/vote/2022/vote_003 https://www.debian.org/vote/2022/vote_003 Lets hope so, but it doesn't look like to me, reading the proposal Maybe it is a matter of interpretation

passthejoe 4y ago

This makes it easier to get started with Debian. If the project, or motivated users want to detail exactly how to run Debian without nonfree firmware, that would be great. And just as the nonfree installer was available but kept slightly hidden (even though it's difficult to install on just about any laptop without it), I'm sure there will be Debian Developers motivated to continue providing a fully free installer for those who want it.

passthejoe 4y ago
Clarification: I know there are instructions in the Debian documentation on how to put nonfree firmware on a USB drive and to use that drive with the free installer, but it's so much easier to just use the nonfree installer if you're going to be using nonfree firmware. Why make it hard if you're using the bits anyway? That said, I'd love to see a lot more people writing about what hardware works with free firmware so we can decide if we want to go in that direction. I am all for that.