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Comment by Caligatio | Hacker News Reader

I feel like distributing the non-free firmware on the installation media but only installing it with user confirmation (they can even have a short pop-up disclaimer about non-free software) is an easy compromise. The open source purists still end up with an install free of non-free software and those that need non-free software can successfully use Debian. Giving people the freedom of (easy) choice to install non-free software does not infringe on others' desire for a completely FOSS OS.

I wouldn't frame this as an "obsession" with user conversion or retention; this is literally just making a product usable by a majority (I think?) of laptop users.

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Ubuntu already has that option though, doesn't it?

If someone has strong feelings about using Debian over Ubuntu, I would be surprised if it were a big hassle to find the install media they need.

It just seems like a moot point to me.

Ubuntu has a checkbox to install non-free codecs, I'm forgetting if that also includes non-free firmware.

With all the hate directed at Ubuntu 20.04 (mostly about Snaps), I don't know why saying "just use Ubuntu if you use wifi" would be an acceptable stance. Given Debian does release unofficial non-free DVD/CD images[1] (i.e. the dirty deed has already been done) and someone proposed a patch to make them more prominent, any resistance to the patch really just seems anti-user rather than pro-FOSS principles.

[1] http://cdimage.debian.org/cdimage/unofficial/non-free/cd-inc...

I don't get the hate directed at snaps. Yeah they're not great, just don't use them. Ubuntu is just Debian, you can just grab packages from the usual Debian repos and use your .debs as normal.

The issue with further publicizing those images is that Debian cannot reasonably offer community support for those nonfree bits. Only the vendor can, or some other company that signed a deal with the vendor. (Canonical happens to be one of those companies)

I agree with you 100% about Snaps. I only brought them up because one of the common complaints is that the Snap server is not open source. This is why it's weird to me that FOSS supporters would push potential Debian users to Ubuntu where there is even a higher dependency on non-free software.

Regarding non-free support, assuming the firmware is in Debian's non-free repository, Debian already provides support. From their policy[1], distributed non-free software "must not be so buggy that we refuse to support them." That sounds to me like they already offer support (whatever that means for a volunteer-driven project).

So they already release unofficial installers with non-free binaries included, already have a repository that contains non-free binaries, and seemingly offer limited technical support for non-free binaries. Yet they have opted to not readily present these options easily to a potential user.

[1] https://www.debian.org/doc/debian-policy/ch-archive#s-non-fr...

I just doubt these users are ever going to care about setting up their own snap server, and if they do, they will quickly find out it's not possible and just switch to something else. (For example, plain old Flatpak is in the Debian and Ubuntu repos)

That "must not be so buggy that we refuse to support them" is a requirement for all packages that Debian ships, the difference with the nonfree packages is that if a breaking bug happens, the only real option there is to delete the package until the vendor fixes it.

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