Sam:
If bug 187 [1] is valid, we need to leave some nouveau components out
(in the short term). That is likely to render the driver useless.
I think one of the nouveau guys said at FOSDEM that the nv driver is
really obfuscated and so arguably non-free as well. I don't know how
that (should) affect gNewSense.
So maybe Vesa is your only option in gNewSense, which isn't that bad on
an LCD monitor if you don't need 3D.
(To my knowledge, VGA is not a driver but a standard screen resolution.)
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nv was obfuscated by nVidia a long time ago. The nouveau project went
back through x.org's source control and found the pre-obfuscated code
and un-obfuscated the nv code before starting their work.
I'm fairly sure it's all reverse-engineered and not cribbed from some
non-free driver source.
I can't vouch for this as I didn't do it, but I'm fairly sure that's
what I remember from reading up on nouveau.
(Back to work.)