Re: Installation: Load non-free wifi firmware (iwlwifi)

[Chris Marusich <cmmarusich@gmail.com>]

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Marius Bakke <mbakke@fastmail.com> writes:

> Chris Marusich <cmmarusich@gmail.com> writes:
>
>> Hi Pierre,
>>
>> Pierre Neidhardt <ambrevar@gmail.com> writes:
>>
>>> linux-libre turns off the ability to load non-free firmware.  Why is
>>> it so?
>>
>> I did a little bit of searching on the Internet, and it seems to me like
>> the reason why Linux-libre turns off the ability to load non-free
>> firmware is because the project does not want to induce you to use
>> non-free software.
>
> This is not true.  After all, you may wish to load a firmware that you
> have developed yourself, but that is not possible either.  The problem
> is a limitation of the kernel interface and/or the deblobbing script:
>
> From an interview with Alexandre Oliva[0]:
>
> "Indeed, I became aware that some users have got the idea that blocking
> the loading of blobs is a feature. It's not; it's just a bug that's
> quite difficult to fix. The decision on whether or not to use a piece of
> software, be it Free or not, should belong to the users, and it's not
> our intent to make that difficult."
>
> [0] https://www.fsfla.org/ikiwiki/blogs/lxo/2013-11-08-linux-libre-interview-by-bruce-byfield.en.html

Thank you for correcting my understanding!  I read the interview you
linked, as well as the original email thread referenced by the LWN
article [1].  My understanding is now that Linux-libre wants both (1) to
avoid inducing users to install non-free firmware (e.g. even logging the
non-free firmware name is something they would consider to be "inducing"
the user to install the non-free firmware), and (2) to allow users to
install whatever firmware they want, regardless of whether it is free or
non-free firmware.  However, due to the way the kernel Linux loads
firmware combined with the way that Linux-libre mangles the non-free
firmware identifiers to accomplish (1), users of Linux-libre currently
need to go through the extra effort of modifying the Linux-libre source
code (which they are free to do) if they want to load non-free firmware
(or firmware they have built themselves but have chosen not to share).

It is good to know that the Linux-libre project intends to allow users
to do whatever they want with the kernel.  I appreciate you taking the
time to clarify this for me!

Footnotes: 
[1]  https://lists.nongnu.org/archive/html/gnu-linux-libre/2010-12/msg00022.html

-- 
Chris

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