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

[Stefano Zacchiroli]

On Sat, Feb 20, 2016 at 09:34:48AM -0800, Bradley M. Kuhn wrote:
> I'm speaking here as a Debian user and Free Software citizen, although I
> 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.

FWIW I agree with this.

And, to follow-up onto Holger's reasonable "[citation needed]" request,
I don't think that legal advice, or legal opinions in general, should be
the primary input that Debian uses to decide on this specific matter.

There are expert FOSS lawyers that consider proprietary Linux kernel
modules to be GPL violations in a number of circumstances, and others
with opposed views. And there are no relevant legal ruling yet AFAIK.

What is certain however is that a significant amount of Linux kernel
developers do consider proprietary modules like the nvidia one to be GPL
violations that infringe on their copyrights. Those developers
contribute code to the Linux kernel considering that 3rd party modules
should be released as Free Software too. Some of them also put money and
energies into fighting those who try to get away with proprietary
modules, free riding on their work.

Morally, I've no doubt on which side of those fights Debian should be.
And by distributing proprietary modules we are not helping our fellow
Free Software developers, quite the contrary.  But even putting moral
considerations aside for a moment, Debian should not be in the political
position of being cross with Linux kernel developers on the ground of
alleged copyright infringement. The political/legal Free Software
battleground is already enough of a mess; we should not contribute to
make it worse by risking community infights.

Especially when there is a technical alternative that provides an almost
identical user experience for Debian users who need nvidia.ko: a
downloader/installer package like nvidia-graphics-drivers used to be
many years ago [1,2].

Cheers.

[1]: http://sources.debian.net/src/nvidia-graphics-drivers/1.0.7174-3/debian/changelog/#L352-L354
[2]: http://sources.debian.net/src/nvidia-kernel-src/1.0.2880-1/debian/changelog/
-- 
Stefano Zacchiroli  . . . . . . .  zack at upsilon.cc . . . . o . . . o . o
Maître de conférences . . . . . http://upsilon.cc/zack . . . o . . . o o
Former Debian Project Leader . . . . . @zacchiro . . . . o o o . . . o .
« the first rule of tautology club is the first rule of tautology club »
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