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Maniphest T566

non-free firmware blob load behaviour
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Description

On non-Purism hardware, it appears to be the case, that the PureOS kernel allows the loading of non-free firmware modules by the end user without the kernel throwing an exception. Other FSF-endorsed GNU/Linux distros behave differently in that they use a libre-kernels that do not allow such loading of non-free stuff.

I have tried this on HP hardware using the latest version of PureOS.

This shows that in this situation, PureOS is behaving in exactly the same fashion as a standard Debian Testing install.
Is this an oversight or is this the intended behaviour on non-Purism hardware?

Event Timeline

• tronkel created this task.Sep 6 2018, 01:41
jonas.smedegaard closed this task as Invalid.Sep 7 2018, 02:08
jonas.smedegaard added a subscriber: jonas.smedegaard.

Hi tronkel,

Thanks for your concern about FSF FSDG compliance!

It is intended behavior to permit loading custom firmware modules: PureOS do not encourage the use of non-free code, but do not block the user from doing that.

I see no issue here, and therefore flag this as bogus. You are still welcome to provide more information, if you feel I am mistaken in my judgement.

jonas.smedegaard claimed this task.Sep 7 2018, 02:09
jonas.smedegaard triaged this task as Freedom Issue priority.