Re: [Fsuk-manchester] Talking about non-free software on the list

[MJ Ray]

Bob Ham <address@hidden>
> The bug is that the documentation contains instructions on installing 
> non-free firmware.  The non-free firmware is contained within the 
> .zip/.tar.gz archive files at that location.

And here we get to the real problem: it's not that there is
"encouragement" as claimed earlier.  It's that there are any
instructions at all!

As it's still sadly pretty widespread, if the debian project didn't
offer instructions, others would simply publish some, many of which
would almost certainly open the whole system to non-free software,
possibly without mentioning it explicitly.  I think that used to
happen with some multimedia software.  I think it's better to offer
those instructions on how to make a special case for poorly-chosen
hardware so they can try a free system and to teach people how to
choose better hardware.  Overall, the world uses more free software
and less non-free software as a result of those instructions - and
isn't that what we really want?

Regards,
-- 
MJ Ray (slef), member of www.software.coop, a for-more-than-profit co-op.
http://koha-community.org supporter, web and library systems developer.
In My Opinion Only: see http://mjr.towers.org.uk/email.html
Available for hire (including development) at http://www.software.coop/