The issue with linux-libre is also that it completely blocks the use of nonfree firmwares.
At this time I know no WiFi chip used in smartphone or tablets that work without nonfree firmware apart from two cases where the firmware has been put on a dedicated flash chip to not require the distribution to load the firmware. The WiFiResearch wiki page has more details on that.
Replicant shall not redistribute nonfree software because:
- It's wrong and creates a ton of issues: Replicant wound't be fully free anymore
- The FSDG also forbids it
The Replicant project also supports people using ath9k_htc compatible WiFi dongles, and makes sure that even if nonfree firmware can work, people are not pushed into installing them at all. In fact any Replicant upgrade will result in the firmwares being removed.
However distributions still have some leeway on if we should completely block nonfree firmwares or not: we're not strictly obligated to use linux-libre nor to block the use of nonfree firmware.
In my opinion it makes sense for FSDG compliant GNU/Linux distributions to block any nonfree firwmare:
- We have already several drivers that works without nonfree firmwares or with free firmwares for the internal WiFi on supported devices.
- It push people work to get free software WiFi firmwares: The firmware for the ath9k_htc compatible WiFi chips was also freed thanks to that.
However I think that we could actually use the Replicant situation in the opposite way: We could try to push people to work on getting a free WiFi firmware for an Internal WiFi chip and then switch to linux-libre once it works in linux-libre. In turn that could push more people in doing that kind of work as we'd have a recent successful example and a more strong push toward free firmwares.
Denis.