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

[Marius Bakke <mbakke@fastmail.com>]

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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

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