DEBIAN DECHIAN announced about conducting (GR, General Resolution) project developers on the supply of proprietary firmware as part of official installation images and LIVE-Books. Until September 2
The discussion phase of the points put up for voting will last, after which the votes will begin. About a thousand developers participating in the accompaniment of packages and maintaining the infrastructure Debian.
have the right to vote.
Recently, equipment manufacturers are increasingly resorting to the use of external firmware loaded by the operating system, instead of supplying firmware in constant memory on the devices themselves. Such external firmware is necessary for many modern graphic, sound and network adapters. At the same time, the question is ambiguous how the supply of proprietary firmware is correlated with the requirement of the supply of only free software in the main assemblies of Debian, since the firmware is carried out on hardware devices, and not in the system, and are related to equipment. On modern computers, equipped even with completely free distributions, firmware built into equipment is performed. The only difference is that some firmware are loaded with the operating system, while others are already stitched in ROM or Flash memory.
Until now, proprietary firmware has not been included in the official installation images of Debian and were supplied in a separate non-free repository. Installation assemblies with proprietary firmware have unofficial status and spread separately, which leads to confusion and creates difficulties among users, since in many cases the full operation of modern equipment can be achieved only after the installation of proprietary firmware. The DEBIAN project is engaged in the preparation and accompaniment of unofficial assemblies with proprietary firmware, which requires additional expenses for the assembly, testing and placement of unofficial assemblies that duplicate official.
There was a situation in which unofficial assemblies are more preferable to the user if he wants to achieve normal support for his equipment, and the installation of recommended official assemblies often leads to problems in equipment support. In addition, the use of unofficial assemblies interferes with the achievement of the ideal regarding the supply of only open software and involuntarily leads to the popularization of proprietary software, since the user, along with the firmware, also receives the connected non-free repository with another non-free software.