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Does anyone here avoid contrib or non free software?

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GarryRicketson
Posts: 5644
Joined: 2015-01-20 22:16
Location: Durango, Mexico

Re: Does anyone here avoid contrib or non free software?

#41 Post by GarryRicketson »

Well, I don't intend to put down the question, but honestly, most people would
realize, based on the high number of members , there would be some people
that do avoid it, and others that don't.
Reading other posts, and browsing the forum would also show that.
Post by deborah-and-ian »
Yeah, because a simple yes or no makes for a boring read, doesn't it?
Yes it does, can you imagine 3 pages of just "yes" or just "no" ?

If MS had their way, and they still keep trying, everybody would have to use
proprietary software, and only the proprietary soft ware that they own.
From: https://www.debian.org/releases/jessie/ ... all.txt.en
2.3.1. Avoid Proprietary or Closed Hardware

Some hardware manufacturers simply won't tell us how to write drivers for their
hardware. Others won't allow us access to the documentation without a
non-disclosure agreement that would prevent us from releasing the driver's
source code, which is one of the central elements of free software. Since we
haven't been granted access to usable documentation on these devices, they
simply won't work under Linux.

In many cases there are standards (or at least some de-facto standards)
describing how an operating system and its device drivers communicate with a
certain class of devices. All devices which comply to such a (de-facto-)
standard can be used with a single generic device driver and no device-specific
drivers are required. With some kinds of hardware (e.g. USB "Human Interface
Devices", i.e. keyboards, mice, etc., and USB mass storage devices like USB
flash disks and memory card readers) this works very well and practically every
device sold in the market is standards-compliant.

In other fields, among them e.g. printers, this is unfortunately not the case.
While there are many printers which can be addressed via a small set of
(de-facto-)standard control languages and therefore can be made to work without
problems in any operating system, there are quite a few models which only
understand proprietary control commands for which no usable documentation is
available and therefore either cannot be used at all on free operating systems
or can only be used with a vendor-supplied closed-source driver.

Even if there is a vendor-provided closed-source driver for such hardware when
purchasing the device, the practical lifespan of the device is limited by
driver availability. Nowadays product cycles have become short and it is not
uncommon that a short time after a consumer device has ceased production, no
driver updates get made available any more by the manufacturer. If the old
closed-source driver does not work anymore after a system update, an otherwise
perfectly working device becomes unusable due to lacking driver support and
there is nothing that can be done in this case. You should therefore avoid
buying closed hardware in the first place, regardless of the operating system
you want to use it with.

You can help improve this situation by encouraging manufacturers of closed
hardware to release the documentation and other resources necessary for us to
provide free drivers for their hardware.
I double checked and the amd64 install.txt has the same as well.
For those "younger" folks here that might not know, this has been a part
of the install.txt even in the first realease, debian 1.0
Another topic, and another question might be, "Does anyone even bother to ever read the complete "install.txt", that is included with Debian ?
I am sure a very few actually do, and would even place a high dollar bet, that
most of the answers would be no.

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Lysander
Posts: 643
Joined: 2017-02-23 10:07
Location: London
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Re: Does anyone here avoid contrib or non free software?

#42 Post by Lysander »

GarryRicketson wrote: Another topic, and another question might be, "Does anyone even bother to ever read the complete "install.txt", that is included with Debian ?
I am sure a very few actually do, and would even place a high dollar bet, that
most of the answers would be no.
I haven't. I suppose I should track it down and have a look.

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dasein
Posts: 7680
Joined: 2011-03-04 01:06
Location: Terra Incantationum

Re: Does anyone here avoid contrib or non free software?

#43 Post by dasein »

GarryRicketson wrote:[C]an you imagine 3 pages of just "yes" or just "no" ?
Yes.

:mrgreen:

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