Bug#815060: Encouraging removal of nvidia kernel modules from Debian non-free archive.

[Bradley M. Kuhn]

I'm speaking here as a Debian user and Free Software citizen, although I
cannot deny nor set aside that I have much professional experience with
the issue at hand.  Here is my personal opinion, which I say on behalf
of myself only, not my employer or other orgs I volunteer for (also,
IANAL and TINLA):

First, I think Ben's explanation on the problems are salient.  But, more
importantly and generally, IMO, Debian should err on the side of caution
in these situations.  Until a few days ago, I had no idea that Debian
*ever* shipped (even in non-free, which admittedly I don't use ;),
GPL-incompatible .ko files like these.  I think ever doing so is just a
mistake because the risk is more than Debian should want to take.

The politics of GPL-incompatible Linux modules is heated, and there are
admittedly different opinions about the issue.  You can probably guess
my opinion and belief.  But, I don't think it behooves Debian to place
itself in the middle of that debate and take on risk, merely to ship
something that is known to be at *best* non-free.  Now that Ben, a
copyright holder in Linux, has come forward to say he believes
distribution of these modules in Debian is a GPL violation, I think
Debian must respect his wishes and remove the modules from the archive.
-- 
   -- bkuhn