diff --git a/site/news/policy.md b/site/news/policy.md index 09b338a..b537112 100644 --- a/site/news/policy.md +++ b/site/news/policy.md @@ -296,7 +296,9 @@ The FSF maintains another set of criteria, dubbed Free System Distribution Guidelines (GNU FSDG)] The FSDG criteria is separate from RYF, but has similar problems. FSDG is -what the FSF-endorsed GNU+Linux distros comply with. Thoughts: +what the FSF-endorsed GNU+Linux distros comply with. Basically, it bans +all proprietary software, including device firmware. This may seem noble, but +it's extremely problematic in the context of firmware. Food for thought: * Excluding firmware blobs in the linux kernel is *bad*. Proprietary firmware is *also bad*. Including them is a wiser choice, if strong education is also @@ -333,7 +335,15 @@ system. They tell you how to do it, which means that they are helping people to get *some* freedom *rather than none*. This is an inherently pragmatic way to do things, and it's now how Libreboot does it. -OpenBSD is very much the same, but they go a step further: during the initial +More context regarding Debian is available in this blog post: + - in it, the +author, a prominent Debian developer, makes excellent points about device +firmware similar to the (Libreboot) article that you're reading now. It's +worth a read! As of October 2022, Debian has voted to include device firmware +by *default*, in following Debian releases. It used to be that Debian excluded +such firmware, but allowed you to add it. + +OpenBSD is very much the same, but they're clever about it: during the initial boot, after installation, it tells you exactly what firmware is needed and updates that for you. It's handled in a very transparent way, by their `fw_update` program which you can read about here: