Debian Linux, which is oriented towards completely free software, includes proprietary firmware for the first time in 29 years.
According to US GDNet on the 4th (local time), the unique firmware has been included in Debian Linux version 12 due to a community policy change.
Debian Linux has been completely free software for its 29 year history. Although Debian provided installation images containing proprietary software, these images were marked for experimentation.
As decided by the Debian community, future new versions will officially include proprietary software as part of Debian.
Last month, the Debian community voted to incorporate proprietary firmware. This voting was done in the Condorcet method, where the final winner was determined by a one-to-one match of all the options. As a result, Option E, which includes non-free software in the installer and replaces the Debian Social Contract (SC), was the eventual winner.
Moving forward, Debian will include non-free firmware packages in its official installer images and library images. These firmware binaries are enabled by default when needed.
For example, if your computer has Wi-Fi hardware that requires BLOB firmware, the new Debian installer will suggest installing it by default.
Meanwhile, Linux kernel developers have offered hardware vendors to create open source drivers, but several hardware vendors have refused to cooperate. Accordingly, distributions such as Arch Linux and Fedora included proprietary firmware in their distributions. Distributions such as Ubuntu and Linux Mint include proprietary drivers and non-essential multimedia codecs.
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In comparison, Debian did not accept proprietary software. That was the will of the early Debian designers. However, in recent years, the tone of the community has been turned upside down. The option to change the social contract received overwhelming support.
Version 12 of Debian, which includes proprietary software, will be released next year. If you want a proprietary code-free Linux distribution, you can choose between PureOS, which is based on Debian, and Triskell, which is based on Ubuntu.
