The results of the general resolution vote (GR) among the Debian project developers, who are involved in package maintenance and infrastructure support, have been published. The vote addressed the inclusion of proprietary firmware in the official installation images and live builds. The fifth option, 'Amend the Social Contract to allow for non-free firmware in the installer, providing unified installation builds,' was the winning choice.
The chosen option implies an amendment to the Social Contract (Debian Social Contract), which defines the fundamental principles of the project and the community's commitments. A note will be added to the fifth point of the social contract, which includes the requirement to adhere to free software standards, stating that official Debian media may include firmware that is not part of the Debian system if necessary to ensure the distribution functions on hardware that requires such firmware.
Packages from the 'non-free-firmware' section, which contains components related to firmware that have been moved from the non-free repository, will be included in the official Debian installation media and live images. If hardware requiring external firmware is detected, the use of necessary proprietary firmware will be enabled by default. However, for users who prefer only free software, an option will be provided during the boot process to disable the use of non-free firmware.
Additionally, the installer and live image will provide information about the type of firmware loaded. Data on the firmware in use will also be saved in the installed system, allowing users to later retrieve details about the firmware they are using. If firmware is necessary for the hardware to function after installation, the system will also offer to add the non-free-firmware repository to the sources.list file by default, enabling updates for firmware that fix vulnerabilities and critical bugs. Images with proprietary firmware will be supplied as official media, replacing previously offered images without non-free firmware.
The issue of firmware delivery has become relevant as equipment manufacturers increasingly resort to using external firmware loaded by the operating system, instead of including firmware in the permanent memory of the devices themselves. Such external firmware is necessary for many modern graphic, audio, and network adapters. However, the question is ambiguous regarding how the supply of proprietary firmware aligns with the requirement to provide only free software in the main Debian distributions, since the firmware operates on hardware devices rather than within the system, and is related to the equipment. On modern computers, even those equipped with fully free distributions, the firmware embedded in the hardware is executed. The difference lies in whether one firmware is loaded by the operating system or the other is already programmed into ROM or Flash memory.
Until now, proprietary firmware has not been included in the official Debian installation images and has been provided in a separate non-free repository. Installation builds with proprietary firmware have an unofficial status and are distributed separately, leading to confusion and difficulties for users, as in many cases full functionality of modern hardware can only be achieved after installing proprietary firmware. The Debian project has also worked on preparing and maintaining unofficial builds with proprietary firmware, which required additional resources for building, testing, and hosting unofficial builds that duplicate the official ones.
A situation has arisen where unofficial builds are more preferable for users who want proper support for their hardware, while installing the recommended official builds often leads to hardware support issues. Additionally, the use of unofficial builds hinders the ideal of supplying only open-source software and inadvertently promotes proprietary software, as users receive the proprietary firmware along with the connected non-free repository containing other non-free software.
Source: opennet.ru
