Re: [Gnewsense-dev] metad i386 installation

[Jason Self]

On Dec 4, 2009, at 9:57 PM, aurele wrote:

> On Fri, 2009-12-04 at 16:07 -0800, Jason Self wrote:
>> Recommending nonfree software is certainly not good, but maybe it's a  
>> good idea to leave the non-free hardware detection code in place and  
>> instead change the message to encourage the user to use free software- 
>> loving hardware?  :)
>> 
>> I think there's some potential here.
> 
> Hi Jason,
> 
> I think it should be a good idea to keep this and modify to proprose the 
> free-hardware at this place.
> To prove that their is always a free solution.
> 
> -- aurele

I was thinking that the message could start the same way ("Some of your 
hardware needs non-free firmware files to operate.") But end differently, of 
course. This seems like a perfect opportunity to alert/educate users as the 
hardware is detected, while the install is happening, rather than afterward 
when they ask "why doesn't my WiFi card work?"

They could (hopefully) be made understand that it's the manufacturer of their 
WiFi card that's causing their problems by requiring non-free software, not 
gNewSense. Perhaps also referring them to 
http://www.fsf.org/resources/hw/net/wireless/cards.html or whatever.

I don't know, sometimes I have crazy ideas but this seems like too good an 
opportunity to pass on.