Marius Bakke writes: > Chris Marusich writes: > >> Hi Pierre, >> >> Pierre Neidhardt 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