Re: [GNU-linux-libre] Wiki list move

[A.J. Venter]

> Let me make sure I'm understanding all this correctly: the packages
> coming from the upstream distros include a variety of different tools
> for dealing with Broadcom cards.  All these tools are free, and some of
> them are necessary to build free firmware for the cards, but at least
> one other tool in the package -- fwcutter -- is *only* useful for
> working with proprietary firmware.
That's pretty accurate - except most of the upstreams only include
fwcutter - the other tools that are in the source tree are usually
left out of their packages.
We should be doing the opposite, strip out fwcutter - and install only
the rest.
Kongoni has a port for the tree which does this already, since we
basically hand-code everything that isn't in slackware already anyway,
it's easy for us to handle
such things on demand. I do agree though that I think the free
distro's ought to include a new package based on the upstream source,
without fwcutter - if only because
it will make things much easier on the maintainers of the free
firmware packages.
Since kongoni is source based, we have a port for the firmware, which
depends on this port - without it, it couldn't build.
>
> If that is all correct, then it sounds like the ideal solution would be
> to prepare new packages that include all the tools except fwcutter.
> Then users could easily get the tools they need to build the free
> drivers, without being nudged toward proprietary firmware through
> fwcutter.
Agreed.
>
> If I've misunderstood something and this doesn't fix the problem -- or
> if this is really hard for some reason -- let me know and we can work
> something out.  Otherwise, I think we can make this the recommended
> solution on the list.
It's not very hard, the source tree has each of the tools in it's own
subdirectory, it has no top-level makefile either, the port actually
creates one, which has an install target
(makes it easier for the second stage package building) - in our case,
that make file simply skips over the fwcutter directory on both the
build and install targets. I'll be happy
to share this makefile if it will help people maintaining packages on
other distros. It's pretty simple though, about 10 lines.
>
> This is another part of the reason I wanted to stop calling this page
> the "blacklist."  So far, it's been common to remove packages wholesale
> when we find that they include problematic software.  That's
> understandable when there's not much manpower, but it doesn't have to be
> that way.  If people are willing to put in the time and effort to make
> more targeted patches -- to remove only one problematic program, or even
> patch it so it's not problematic anymore -- we would be happy to see
> that happen.  There might be low-hanging fruit here for interested
> contributors to work on -- feel free to get the word out.  :)
I agree with this - we're getting bigger and there's more of us, and
some of us like kongoni are writing our own package build scripts and
patching as standard fare so this is becoming
a lot more feasible as an approach now.
>

Ciao
--
A.J. Venter
Founder and lead developer, Kongoni GNU/Linux
www.kongoni.co.za
www.silentcoder.co.za - Blog