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Comment by BirAdam | Hacker News Reader

Mixed and competing thoughts and emotions. On the one hand, I love that Debian was the community GNU/Linux that shipped with the ability to be 100% unencumbered super easily. On the other hand, I feel like a system should be usable immediately with little effort if it is to be enjoyed and properly useful. Then there’s part of me screaming “tradition not trend” and another part of me is screaming back with “finally!” It would be nice if they made it optional within the installer I suppose. Maybe I’m just a crazy person.

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> On the other hand, I feel like a system should be usable immediately with little effort if it is to be enjoyed and properly useful.

Not all distros have to be everything for everyone. It's OK to have a niche. If you want a distro that you can "just install" on any old bit of hardware that you have lying around, there are plenty of other distros out there that will do that already.

I liked that Debian made you think about Freedom. If you wanted to use the "standard" installer and live up to Debian's Free Software ideals, as enshrined in Social Contract, you had to think about which companies made hardware that had Free drivers available, and make an effort to give your money to those that enabled that use-case. Or, burden of burdens!, you could spend a couple of extra minutes and a handful of clicks to track down the "unofficial" non-Free installer image.

Seriously, it wasn't that hard.

Yes, I know that the SC says that Debian's priorities are "our users, and Free Software" (but below "will remain 100% free"), but "our users" doesn't necessarily mean "all possible users". For those users that came to Debian primarily for the Freedom, I think this is a misstep.

But, I don't determine which priorities and users are the most important to Debian, the membership does. And Debian is still one of the most committed to freedom distros out there, especially for its size. So, while this is not the choice that I would have made, now that it has been, I hope it makes Debian stronger going forwards.

However, Debian doesn't really warn prospective users about the real-world ramifications of its commitment to free software. It's one thing if the homepage had a big warning "this is for free software purists and you'll need to do a complex procedure if you want to run non-free firmware - if you're not ready for this, consider an easier distro like Ubuntu", but they don't.

Technical people will understand or at least suspect these problems, but a novice user who wants to try Linux (they are non-technical and already don't fully understand the concept of distros - maybe someone once told them "try Debian" and so for them "Linux" is Debian), see a nice "Download" button on the homepage, try it out and then are left disgruntled not just by Debian but Linux in general when the thing doesn't work because their network card requires proprietary firmware, so they go back to Windows, running way more proprietary software than a firmware blob, and as a bonus they now have a negative opinion of "Linux".

Having more users use some free software is better than those users giving up just so that some purists' ideological concerns be satisfied.

You think all Distros that do something different need big warnings on their home page to make sure novices who just want to try "Linux" don't get stuck? Like Guix, or GoboLinux? (OK, GoboLinux says it "redefines the entire filesystem hierarchy" - but it makes it sound like a good thing, not a warning.)

You think that if someone tells a novice to "try Guix" or "try GoboLinux", and they get disgruntled with Linux in general that that's Guix's or GoboLinux's fault? Maybe Guix/Gobo should just go back to doing things the same way as everyone else?

Or is Debian's problem that it's just too good (too big/too popular/too established) as a distro to have a niche like "being Free"? Maybe it should work on being less user-friendly and shrink the user-base in order to keep doing the Free thing without accidentally getting recommended to newbies and turning them away from "Linux"?

> You think all Distros that do something different need big warnings on their home page to make sure novices who just want to try "Linux" don't get stuck?

Pretty obviously, they think exactly that. I agree. What's the harm, unless you were planning on deception?

More transparency to potential users is always good. Similarly, I try to be open about I'm not very experienced on my open source projects someone could conceivably rely on.

> Or, burden of burdens!, you could spend a couple of extra minutes and a handful of clicks to track down the "unofficial" non-Free installer image.

I only got to know about the unofficial installer on here, years after it could've been useful. At the time, I didn't have an extra machine to fetch the necessary binaries I needed to get networking working on my laptop. This was when I dropped Debian.

I'd be perfectly fine with an installer that lets me have the choice, as long as it doesn't require me to reboot into a different OS to actually fetch the stuff I need. Just think of the man-hours wasted globally.

> On the one hand, I love that Debian was the community GNU/Linux that shipped with the ability to be 100% unencumbered super easily.

There will probably be an "unofficial 100% free installer" for those who care about that. The SC change does not forbid that, it just says that what Debian publishes by default should not introduce obvious breakage on systems where providing non-free firmware is required for proper operation.

Isn't that kind of what Ubuntu is for? Without major players in the community taking a hard line on free software, incentives to support freedom will become even lower than they currently are today.

Ubuntu is far more than a Debian fork nowadays - I think of the packages that are installed on most user systems, very little of them share the same source between Ubuntu and Debian.

> It would be nice if they made it optional within the installer I suppose.

Apparently this option lost by 6 votes:

    Option 5 "Change SC for non-free firmware in installer, one installer"
    Option 6 "Change SC for non-free firmware in installer, keep both installers"
    .
    .
    .
    Option 5 defeats Option 6 by ( 169 -  163) =    6 votes.

That's too close. I hope they can have another debate and vote about just these two options.

Option 6 was to make a separate image that doesn't contain any non-free firmware available. Option 5, the winning option, also intents to allow the user to choose whether non-free firmware should be used from inside the installer:

> The included firmware binaries will normally be enabled by default where the system determines that they are required, but where possible we will include ways for users to disable this at boot (boot menu option, kernel command line etc.).

Not sure how the vote was conducted, but if it was first past the post then it's a shame. Because I'm sure some of the folks who voted for other options would have preferred option 6.

Debian uses a Condorcet method (specifically the Schulze method?[1]). Here is the source code of their vote engine:

https://salsa.debian.org/debian/devotee

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schulze_method

Oh nice, thanks for sharing! Seems like a very fair method of decision making. Go figure and organisation such as theirs would do so

There already was an ISO with non-free firmware. I think that's the only reasonable way to make such a thing optional.

> I feel like a system should be usable immediately with little effort if it is to be enjoyed and properly useful.

More open source should think like this.

I’ve been aggressively trying to get OpenWRT to ship the images with WiFi on by default. At this point 99.99% of people are not leaving their network unsecured, and if for some reason you have to reset the router it becomes a plastic brick unless you have an Ethernet cable and an USB-to-ethernet adapter nearby.

Even suggestions of either creating a landing page that forces the user to set up security before allowing internet connectivity, or basing the WiFi password on the serial number (that is also on the back of any router) falls on deaf ears.

> At this point 99.99% of people are not leaving their network unsecured…

99.99% of people are doing what? Sorry, the double negative above is confusing me.

I think they are suggesting that years of abuse hurled at the average user, coupled with legislation, have caused all new home networks to be secure, one way or the other.

There is regulation for that? I would be interested in finding out more.

> I’ve been aggressively trying to get OpenWRT to ship the images with WiFi on by default

With what password? Plenty of people won't configure things they don't have to and that's a huge security hole. I don't see the utility in this change frankly.

The comment you reply to both explains the utility and proposes ways of mitigating the "huge security hole".

So two clicks to turn on wifi that I can do from anywhere in my house is easier than digging my router out of my closet to write down and type in the serial number? This was supposed to be an idea that makes OpenWRT "usable immediately with little effort". This is not that.

I didn't see the part where they suggested to disable configuration over wired ethernet, or this was the only thing suggested. And yes, a lot of the time when people are setting up a router they have the router at hand.

> I didn't see the part where they suggested to disable configuration over wired ethernet

In case I wasn't clear, configuring it over wired Ethernet is exactly what I'm suggesting. This is a far more usable and secure default than default than wireless on with the password as some universal default or using the serial number.

> And yes, a lot of the time when people are setting up a router they have the router at hand.

While I have no doubt that this is true for home-grade firewall/NAT/wifi combo boxes in general, with very few exceptions OpenWRT is not a thing you get out of the box nor a thing "normal people" install.

The Venn diagram of "people who have chosen to install an alternate firmware on their home network appliance" and "people who don't have an ethernet capable device around at basically all times" can't have a lot of overlap.

The problem is not the fact of not having an Ethernet cable around, these days almost no laptop has an Ethernet port.

Which is a problem easily solved with a cheap USB ethernet dongle, and again while the general mainstream computing audience may or may not have those I think it's reasonable to assume that the average person who has chosen to install OpenWRT probably wishes laptops still came with ethernet ports and purchased an adapter immediately or soon after.

Maybe I'm wrong about that, but to me OpenWRT means geek audience, and geeks generally understand the value of a wired connection.

> So two clicks to turn on wifi

How would you communicate with the router without an ethernet connection to it?

Remember, WiFi is off by default.

At that point you're probably gonna have to do some serial or JTAG magic, which is gonna involve physically breaking open the router and soldering. So much for 'two clicks'.

> How would you communicate with the router without an ethernet connection to it?

Using the Ethernet port is exactly what I'm suggesting. This is far simpler than using the serial number as the wifi password, and more secure than a universal password.

Furthermore, there are legal liabilities involved with the wifi spectrum. Different countries reserve different bands in the spectrum and have different limits on transmission power. OpenWRT would have to provide different builds for different countries, maintain and validate this list and risk making costly legal mistakes here, or if there's some lowest common denominator, then risk giving OpenWRT getting a reputation for bad wifi.

No, best to let the user accept the liability of configuring their own router. The improvements in usability are marginal and the potential costs to OpenWRT are considerable.

> Furthermore, there are legal liabilities involved with the wifi spectrum.

OpenWRT is already ‘exposed’ (not really) to this risk, because as soon as you flip the radio to ‘on’, it’s just set to the default, not your specific region.

> The improvements in usability are marginal and the potential costs to OpenWRT are considerable.

And here we have it, the exact attitude the OP was talking about. Open source needs to become more considerate of its users.

> OpenWRT is already ‘exposed’ (not really) to this risk, because as soon as you flip the radio to ‘on’, it’s just set to the default, not your specific region.

The radio does not turn on unless you tell it to by saving your configuration. That's where the liability lies and that liability falls on the user at present. Placing it on the project is not acceptable.

> And here we have it, the exact attitude the OP was talking about. Open source needs to become more considerate of its users.

Inapplicable when the attitude exists for a good reason. Users can go elsewhere for free stuff if they're not happy with it.

> Placing it on the project is not acceptable.

The liability isn't on the project regardless.

> Users can go elsewhere for free stuff if they're not happy with it.

You're literally a 'why open source keeps sucking' quote machine.

> The liability isn't on the project regardless.

OK random person on the internet whose word I should accept on a subtle legal question. Tools that assist in violating the law are often themselves classed as illegal or carry liability for the producers. For instance, tools that assist in bypassing copyright protections, and tools that assist in breaking locks to name but a few.

Go ahead and quote me some rock solid precedent that would shield OpenWRT from any kind of liability if they wifi enabled distributed images with illegal configurations. A precedent that would apply in every jurisdiction mind you.

> You're literally a 'why open source keeps sucking' quote machine.

You made your case, the people actually doing the work clearly disagreed, so time to move on. Use your own time to make your perfect solution if it's that important to you, instead of demanding others do the same.

OpenWRT already provides the image builder, so all you technically need to do is host it: https://openwrt.org/docs/guide-user/additional-software/imag...

Best of luck with that.

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