[microcolonel]

A lot of Linux distros just ship a lot of this firmware, not expecting to be litigated against for it; and it seems to work out.

[petecox]

c.f. Debian, which has a policy to exclude non-free firmware from its installation media.

The onus is on the user to themselves supply the firmware.

https://www.debian.org/releases/stable/i386/ch06s04.html.en