 I think we have plenty of common ground there to agree on. I know like I got started with free software, learning about what it was when I opened the Canoe Manifesto and Emacs for the first time. And because things don't really work that way anymore, you know, everything is much more web-focused and web-based, how do users, through the process of using free software, discover the ideas behind free software. Firefox has done some interesting things, positive things using their splash screen to help like display information about what the four freedoms are and what it means to be free software. But I think within Debian, Debian installer or initial interactions after Debian is set up for the first time, there's opportunities to display, you know, text materials, maybe offer some videos. Could be really interesting as a way to build user momentum that could then help in some of these advocacy efforts to get non-free to be a non-issue. And then in technical projects, I named one specific one of concern, which is I think that the Atheros 9K driver is still not packaged in Debian. Am I, does anybody know, in Maine? Does anybody know if that's not true? So that's the driver for the wireless devices that the FSF has certified under the Respects Your Freedom program. But because the firmware was previously non-free, it created kind of confusing situations that people using the device have it because they either installed the package from non-free originally or because they downloaded the, they built it from source, which you can do. But I think getting that packaged in Debian Maine would be really nice. I would like to find out what the challenges are and whether we could help mobilize some effort on that. Is it in, well, so Nudel says it is in the firmware free package. Okay, well, take that off the list. I am very interested if anybody has ideas about, so the FSF has the endorsed distribution list where we have multiple Debian derivatives on that list, including Trisco and GineerSense, but we don't have Debian itself because of the relationship between Maine and non-free and contrib as the primary reason because that list is endorsing distributions that only promote or recommends free software. But we're also very vocally acknowledging Debian as unique in the large distribution world of having a default distribution that is completely free and Debian Maine being completely free. So it's not the same as, it's not in the same situation as Fedora which still has non-free firmware in its default kernel. It's not the same situation as Ubuntu which also has non-free firmware in the kernel and recommends bits of non-free software. So is there a name, a category, which reflects that without causing confusion with the rest of our endorsed distribution list? I've been thinking about that, but it's gotta be something that is complimentary to Debian and doesn't sound second class, but also doesn't cause confusion with the distributions that are wholeheartedly endorsed as a complete thing. Martin. I just wanted to reference our lunch discussion today where we identified the FSF and the four freedoms to be sort of the law and the DFSG and Debian would be more the courts, the judges, the jurisdiction. And the only reason why we have non-free is not because we endorse that sort of stuff, but because we call ourselves the universal operating system and we put our users at the first position of our social contract. If we didn't do that, it'd be a high inconvenience. No question about that, but the strategy or the goal clearly is to get rid of that stuff. I wonder on the one side what negative impact the decision by FSF to be very strict and very clean on your categorization has on Debian and the FSF. And on the other hand, I wonder, rather than introducing a second category, as you were saying, which is always difficult, what would it take on the side of the FSF or on the side of Debian realistically to simply be able to endorse Debian as a free distribution? Yeah, so while we start backwards, the primary issues on the FSF side are even though non-free and contrary but are said to not be part of Debian, there are many places we find where there seems to be, that's not clearly evident to users, so there are some, and that's one area that I think would need that we would want to have changed and that includes some interactions like the package search on the web, which I know not a lot of experienced Debian users use, but new Debian users are kind of one of the main points here, includes results from not just main and the default search. No. Well, I don't, I'm surprised by that, but it's possible. I'm sure you're familiar with FDroid on Android, right? So FDroid displays in red letters at the top that Firefox promotes the use of non-free plugins. Is this the pivotal aspect of things? Like if we in our Debian installer had blinking red warning signs saying you need to be aware that what you're doing here impedes upon your freedom or a word however you want and then changed things like in the documentation as well as the package search to make it such that the information is accessible but that people are perfectly aware that they're leaving the safe world in going there. How far along the spectrum would it take us if we did that consistently? I think that would go a long way. I think other than that, the questions are more structural like non-free being hosted at the same domain and contributing hosted at the same domain as the rest of Debian is probably going to be an issue, even with ample warnings because it's putting the project's resources into maintaining those things and it looks to people who are coming to Debian for the first time, even people who have been around Debian for a while still confuse these things and think that non-free and contrib are part of Debian proper, so renaming them. They are, they are part of Debian proper, you know? Yeah. Well, they are part of our promise to the user, they're part of our self understanding towards the user but we always say that in terms of prioritization of the resources of the project, they are second priority or third or fourth or whatever. So while we have certain rules like release goals that cover software in main, it does not extend into contrib and non-free in the same way. So yeah, this is insider knowledge in many ways, that's true, but again, we are trying to help the user and I realize that in doing so, we are also like putting logs in your path, right? Because ideally you want the user to not buy that hardware but to buy your certified hardware because demand then ideally makes for a better world. Yeah, and that's one question I have also as a Debian contributor is what's our long-term strategy for getting rid of non-free, what's, so because we've had, we've been essentially the same situation since I first bought a laptop to run Gnu Linux in 2003 or fourth, the same components that are a problem. Wi-Fi, graphics, a few things have gotten a little bit easier, graphics has actually gotten worse and really I think Wi-Fi has possibly gotten worse but what's, if we could guarantee that a user was trying Debian for the first time and they already had a computer, right, and so they needed to work in order to try it, how do we ensure that the person who tries it and loves it with the help of some non-free software that they required in order to get their Wi-Fi card and their graphics working, how do we ensure that that person, the next time they're buying a computer, will make choices and sure, you know, how do we strongly encourage people who make those initial compromises to look for hardware specifically for the purpose of running it without non-free software because we don't, as a community, and it's not FCEPS fault, it's not Debian's fault, is how have we not achieved that so far, right? Because that's our concern, especially with making compromises, we want them to get us someplace. Is this something that FSF and Debian could collaborate on? One of the things I've observed in free software communities is they often don't feel empowered to advocate for the hardware that they want for free software compatible hardware that they want and I know FSF has started doing a good job of this and it's possible that I suspect you would find several enthusiastic folks in the Debian community who would love to participate and advocate for that and sign on to that and add their voice to that and the more weight we have, the stronger that voice becomes. I don't have an avenue to find, I know I've been volunteering on the Respects Your Freedom program but it's still very early stages but I'm curious if that might be a path towards that future and if we are all advocating together towards that future, we will feel more aligned as well as be more aligned. Yeah. All right, and there's a lot of companies that'll be much more willing to listen to people working on Debian than listen to the FSF, you know, like I think that Debian could make a lot of contributions to improving the situation there but I would love to hear any ideas for how, what the mechanics of that could be and now we might get attention from the companies. So how can we make a non-free smaller by moving all the GNU, GFDL documentation to Maine than we don't? I skipped over that bullet point in it, no. We are working on that and I don't mean that in a facetious way, like we have, I have email conversations about it within the last couple of weeks so it's, yeah, I know it's a problem that if non-free were removed, the GNU documentation would have nowhere to go when it has invariant sections. And I remember when that decision happens in Debian I saw people switching to Ubuntu in order to get like a new documentation. Like that's not really exactly what we're trying to have happen here. So yes, that's, I think when we talk about endorsing endorsement there are changes that would need to happen on both sides in order for it to be a possibility and that's something that we need to change on our side. And I recognize that. I'm curious, other than making it harder for people in the Debian community to consider getting rid of non-free, if people have other examples of where that division negatively impacts their work in Debian, sharing that with me might help me make progress in that situation. The microphone. Hi, I come from India and last year me and some of my friends we were trying to populate H&Node a bit. It was difficult for us because what happens is at many places the user has to sort of figure out how user-friendly that process was. And that seemed to us slightly contentious because if it's a very new user probably he would have much more of an issue and he won't even know how to go forward. So that's no deal happening there. And whereas we who perhaps know a little bit more are able to get some documentation from somewhere and then deal with that. So it's very hard to make those choices. Maybe something could be done. I do not know the solution here but what is right now seems to not work at least. Yeah, so there's been some work on a client program for H&Node that would automatically upload the hardware specifications if the user confirmed that everything is working properly. But what you're talking about is part of the reason why we have this very strong phrase in terms of rules on the site that you have to be running one of these distributions in order to contribute information because that's one check to make sure that someone doesn't say, well this thing works on my system without realizing that they're actually using non-free firmware to make it work. But I agree that even with that you still have to know how to look up your components and contribute that information. There's no reason why a program in Debbie and Maine or in Trisco could, people you could opt into it like Popcon where it would automatically prompt you like does your wifi card work? Yes, and then it would upload that information for you. There's no reason why we can't have that just someone has to do it. It's a kind of a similar one. During my term as DPL was getting asked sometimes by companies if there is essentially a hardware certification program for Debian and we just would have had to explain that Debian isn't really a company like that so we can't really give you certificates and say we have a program and you can pay us $5,000 and we'll certify your device. But something possibly in combination with HNode and a client program or some easy way of basically having hardware and going yes it all works without non-free stuff, then when people come along and say, ah, you can actually say it's certified by Debian to work or something similar might be interesting. Just very quick on this note, there's this hardware compatibility list. Well, it's not everything, right? But the ability to just paste all this PCI into somewhere and then get like a green badge that would be really useful. Yeah, I had in the, this is definitely on topic in the cloud conversations, I had thought that there might be a useful Debian team that doesn't yet exist to outreach to companies to engage in ways to make it work in the cloud. Similarly, in the case of heart-free hardware, I can easily imagine, we don't need to say we like this company better than that company. That's not our place as Debian but it's possible that if we could come up with a way to test things in this manner, we could just say it works and then it could be a certification mark kind of thing with a nice logo that they could stop on the thing. Some of our competitors, like for example, Red Hat, they do have their logo next to, let's say Supermicro has Red Hat logos in their hardware pages. I would definitely love to see Debian there and because I got in touch with them, I know they would also. The problem is that we currently have no answer for such companies apart from saying, oh, you can go to h-node.org and I think we should come up with a better answer and especially if we start doing that, probably they will stop giving us stupid IPMI devices with full of GPL programs that we cannot rebuild. I'm sure lots of us have been very annoyed by that and also full of security problems. I wouldn't recommend anyone to put a public IP on a Supermicro IPMI web front end. If you do want to get, if anybody does want to create a team, collaborate on working with companies to help them work with Debian in a free, friendly way for hardware and cloud stuff, let me know. I'd love to find people to work on with that. I suppose, well, possibly open for future discussion but then there's always the question of what if the laptop doesn't require any firmware but has a non-free BIOS. And at what stage do we, I don't want to open up more potential areas of conflict with free software foundation over this and how that could work, could all be. But something certainly I think there seems to be enough interest around that it's probably something worth pursuing at least. I mean, I think levels of certification would probably work for that. So we're very clear what maps to FSFs respects your freedom program and what is lesser. Maybe you have an on-free BIOS, but all free firmware, et cetera. Yeah, we run into any, when you're certifying hardware we have to deal with deciding how far to go into the way in which it's packaged and sold to which has been sort of a little bit of controversy with our hardware certification program but you can imagine someone can build a laptop with all compatible hardware from H node but still ship it with proprietary software anyway. And so is Debian, let's say it ships with Steam, is Debian gonna say, well, this device does work with all free software, you just, but that's not how the manufacturer and the distributor is selling it can become kind of confusing for users. But we try to do both with having the certification program in one place and then just pure compatibility information in another place. And the compatibility information does have information about complete systems in the sense of laptops even though they have proprietary boot firmware we just don't actively recommend or push those besides acknowledging that they all these components other than the boot firmware work with free software. So let's say I get a contact that's from my crew that agrees to work with somebody for doing hardware certification. Can I direct them to the FSF? Sure, yeah, I love that. And then I think it'd be nice if there was an agreement so that the FSF could take that and that, I don't know, some way so that we can have the Debian logo in these manufacturer websites. Some way that I missed that last part. It'd be nice if we had the ways to have the Debian logo in these companies' websites through certification by the FSF maybe, just an idea. For trademark reasons, you can't have, you can't outsource trademark usage to the FSF but we could work on a program where we use the same, we use the same guidelines and once they've checked all of FSF boxes we have a separate internal to Debian verification product. You can do it, yeah, you just can't, you can't completely outsource it and then say the FSF then allows manufacturers to use the Debian logo, that doesn't work. Anyway, if we were to put some logos on a manufacturer's website, there would be some kind of agreement that they would need to sign with Debian so that they can reuse the Debian logo. Debian would have to make a certain register. Which I did already for OpenStack.org for example, Pidale signed it for me so he was responsible at the time. We'd want to make a certification mark and a certification program and have a team of volunteers within the Debian community. We could probably rely on the FSF certification if we want to certify a certain level of free hardware with the same standards and then we would verify the software and if we had a lower level of hardware certification that doesn't guarantee that it's free bios but guarantees that it works with the software in Debian main, we could also do that ourselves. Yeah, I mean, as far as I know, if something meets our standards, it should work with Debian main because we're certifying it based on distributions that are downstream from Debian and our subsets other than supersets of Debian and they're not adding new hardware support. Actually, there's something which I found confusing when you're installing maybe Debian on a machine, especially the firmware part. There's nothing which actually tells you that okay, you need a non-free firmware, for example, for wireless. It's much of a trial and run kind of a thing. So you check and then if it's not working and you try something else, I don't know if there's some solution to that, but. I mean, what's the kind of feeling in the room about the suggestions you have a separate non-free section that is only for hardware support? There was some discussions about having non-free for only hardware support but so far it's only discussions. What are people who don't support that? What are anybody's reasons concerned? So during these discussions, everybody agreed that it should happen. Somebody just needs to do the work. I don't know if I'm just asking because I know it's been one thing that's talked about which to me at least is interesting. From the standpoint of narrowing what most users would be accessing in the world of non-free software. One of the things that I think also happened in this discussion, I'm not sure, but it's still out there, it's related to the PPAs. I mean, why not? We could have one separate APT archive for every single non-free package such that if you had to install one, that doesn't mean that you open the floodgates for all the rest of them. So that's one solution and I think technically that would be possible. I think in all together, before we do too much of this implementation, if we would find out that these three steps are gonna make FSF and Debian be friends forever, then I'm pretty sure they would get implemented very quickly. Now I remember the answer was, yeah, let's wait for the PPAs and then we'll do it. So it will happen when we have PPAs. So in that context, one thing that Neil and I were discussing last night in the bar was you could have a situation where if you install something from non-free, it would still upgrade from that, but if you wanted to install something else that you wouldn't see the packages from non-free unless you explicitly gave a command line parameter to enable non-free for that particular run. And I think that could work too. So it would still use non-free by default for an upgrade command because you've already installed it and you want the newest version, but not for a search or an install command. Yeah, I had an item up there that I phrased is hardening Debian against non-free software, which for me as a user, people sometimes when we talk about concerns with recommending or pointing users towards non-free software, people worry that that's like trying to control users or restricting their choices, but we don't think enough about the other side, which has users that do want to commit to a fully free system and don't want to be asked or offered or accidentally be able to accidentally install stuff that's non-free for the same similar reasons as generally maintaining a secure system, both in terms of your ethical positions and also in terms of the risks we all know non-free software has to a greater degree. So that sounds like something that would be a step towards that I'm interested in other kind of install time choices for the same type of thing. This is already possible and this is what Debian Main is all about. I have Main in there and I don't have Contrib and non-free and that means I'm not gonna eat. I don't have to worry, right? So that's a fantastic strength right there already. It is, it is. It's just still showing up in a few places like the extension repositories for programs in Main and I can never remember if it's recommends or suggests in Main that can still point to non-free, which of course if you try to you won't get those programs but it's create a complete world of free that doesn't point to non-free. Why should it point to non-free if the user doesn't want that? So I think that, what time do we have? Is it done? Minus three minutes. Minus three minutes. Okay, well, let me put in a brief plug for becoming an FSF member if you aren't already. I think that there is a lot of area for collaboration and cooperation between Debian and the FSF both working towards the endorsement goal that a lot of us want but also just on expanding the world of free software in general to the benefit both of Debian as a project and operating system and the FSF as an organization with a mission. So we're 80 plus percent funded by individual donations very little from corporations and I think that's a big common thing between the Debian project as a grassroots initiative and the FSF. So I hope if you're not already a member, you become one and help us actually get resources to where we can help unstick some of these issues if the FSF could solve all of the issues that make non-free requirement for users now we would certainly do that but we need resources in order to be able to both people and financial. So thank you all and I'm here. I have a talk tomorrow morning at 10 which is just about free software activism in general and I'll be here until Sunday night so feel free to grab me and talk about anything else, opinions of the FSF. Don't worry about hurting my feelings, I can take it. Thanks.