Re: Review for the non-free-firmware template in apt-setup

Cyril Brulebois wrote:
> (I seem to remember d-l-e is where people could ask for some review,
> making sure original strings are fine before asking people to translate
> anything, hence the copy; plus Holger for the sublevel stuff towards the
> end.)

tldr: looks good to me.
 
> Quick update: I think I have hw-detect and debian-cd mostly ready at
> this point (and selected packages are currently being moved from
> non-free to non-free-firwmare by their maintainers), and I'm moving on
> to polishing apt-setup.
> 
> At the moment we have the following templates, only used at priority low
> (expert mode), asking whether contrib and/or non-free should be enabled:
> 
>     Template: apt-setup/contrib
>     Type: boolean
>     Default: false
>     # :sl1:
>     _Description: Use contrib software?
>      Some additional software has been made to work with Debian. Though this
>      software is free, it depends on non-free software for its operation. This
>      software is not a part of Debian, but standard Debian tools can be
>      used to install it.
>      .
>      Please choose whether you want this software to be made available to you.
> 
>     Template: apt-setup/non-free
>     Type: boolean
>     Default: false
>     # :sl1:
>     _Description: Use non-free software?
>      Some non-free software has been made to work with Debian. Though this
>      software is not at all a part of Debian, standard Debian tools can be used
>      to install it. This software has varying licenses which may prevent you
>      from using, modifying, or sharing it.
>      .
>      Please choose whether you want to have it available anyway.
> 
> Therefore I've drafted the following for apt-setup/non-free-firmware:
> 
>     Template: apt-setup/non-free-firmware
>     Type: boolean
>     Default: false
>     # :sl5:
>     _Description: Use non-free firmware?
>      Some non-free firmware has been made to work with Debian. Though this

The phrasing "made to work with" has always struck me as poor, since
there are two obvious misinterpretations - "created in order to work
on" or "forced to work on" Debian.  All we mean is things are
organised so that it's made *available* for use on Debian.  But is
there a better short way of saying that?  At any rate I don't think
it's worth slowing down this update.

>      firmware is not at all a part of Debian, standard Debian tools can be used
>      to install it. This firmware has varying licenses which may prevent you
>      from using, modifying, or sharing it.
>      .
>      Please choose whether you want to have it available anyway.
> 
> Differences:
>  - non-free → non-free-firmware
>  - software → firmware
>  - :sl1: → :sl5:
> 
> I don't think we need to go into more details about why there are
> different components, why non-free-firmware was split out of non-free,
> etc. After all, those questions are only asked in expert mode, and
> I'd hope expert users to have heard about our move to supporting this
> new non-free-firmware component… Hopefully we'll have some release notes
> about it, possibly installation guide updates, etc.

In theory users might even think "well, if it's possible that I'm not
allowed to *use* them I'd better read the licenses first", in which
case they'll need to go through some awkward contortions, and if we
aren't going into *those* details... (As far as I know it's only ever
stuff along the lines of "you aren't licensed to use this firmware on
hardware that it has no chance of working with", but I suppose there
*could* be firmware under a JSON-style "may only be used for good,
not evil" license.  Tough luck, lawful evil d-i users.)

> I've selected sublevel 5 instead of sublevel 1, to make sure this isn't
> going to hurt the translation status (which localechooser uses to warn
> against incomplete translations at the very beginning of the
> installation process). Since that template is only shown in expert mode,
> and since we're adding /pretty late/ in the release cycle, I'd be happy
> to have translations if translators jump on it, and “sed” the non-free
> on into non-free-firmware, but we shouldn't block on this… I'll let
> Holger comment about that part and possibly propose different plans.

Fortunately most translators should have a fairly easy job rendering
the English word "firmware" into their own language!