[digiown]

Guix being a GNU project the purism also doesn't help. Just look at this: https://github.com/nonguix/nonguix

I don't even disagree that nonfree software is bad, but blaming the users who often have no choice in the matter (e.g. drivers) is the wrong way to go.

[allan-a]

nonguix is similar to debian's non-free sources. It's also maintained by many of the same contributors to guix. Enabling it is also similar to how you enable it for Debian. I have never seen anyone blamed or shamed for using nonfree drivers by the guix community, which I can say has been a very warm and welcoming community.

[attila-lendvai]

it does happen, and it happened to me, too.

but the attitude has been changing recently from active shaming for even mentioning non-free stuff, to passive acceptance of pragmatically pointing a newcomer to nonguix.

[digiown]

That's nice to hear. I'm a big fan of lisp and I want to switch to nix or guix at some point in the future.

[kevinrineer]

That's good to hear. The intolerance to non-guix (or, possibly, my perception that it was intolerance) made me shy away from the project. This was especially so because I use repaired devices with proprietary HW that would otherwise have been binned by their owners.

[attila-lendvai]

we need to speak up for common sense. i did, maybe too much even, and it has cost me some standing with the project lead... but it must be done nevertheless!

people need to understand what freedom means. sure, do inform others about the downsides of using non-free stuff... but it's very hard to help freedom by shaming and alienating people for trying to use hardware they already own.

[herewulf]

It's a little inconvenient but for example my Framework laptop Intel WiFi chip requires a binary blob and I want aware of this. Now that I am, I can make better hardware purchasing decisions. There are plenty of alternatives that don't require that blob and it's the only thing I need from the no free channel.

[freeopinion]

Are there really a lot of alternative Wifi chips that don't require closed blobs? Do you have a list?

Are they found in any laptop that is reasonably available on the market?

I don't think that Guix is punishing users by not supporting non-libre hardware. They are making a choice in what they develop and anybody of similar mind can join their effort.

The nonguix folks are practical. It just stinks that nothing ships with a Wifi chip that doesn't require nonguix pragmatism.

[civodul]

There are some relatively widespread WiFi chipsets for which free firmware is available:

https://guix.gnu.org/manual/devel/en/html_node/Hardware-Cons...

Unfortunately, it's hard to be sure when you buy a WiFi device whether it has the right chipset. Also, most laptops come with Intel WiFi, and that requires non-free firmware.

[digiown]

I really don't think you can gain much realistic freedom going without the blob. The powers that be will never let you have a freely modifiable radio transceiver.

The blob is better viewed as a part of the hardware in this case. What's most likely to happen to get rid of the blob is to just put it on the non-modifiable parts of the device. Viewed in this way, the blob is at least something you can practically inspect, unlike the firmware on the chip itself.

See also the discussion on CPU microcode:

https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/info-gnu/2018-04/msg00002...

[gf000]

Open hardware is mostly a lie.

They all run proprietary blobs inside and out. It's ridiculous gatekeeping to say that on the kernel level it's bad, but below it I just put my head in the sand and disregard the millions of lines of closed-source code.

[yencabulator]

IMHO the stupidest GNU policy is that if a proprietary blob is stored on a flash chip in a gadget, it's ok, but if it's transmitted to the gadget at startup, it's not.