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If Debian support OS certification?

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  If Debian support OS certification? Eric Lai (賴裕文) <Eric_Lai@quantatw.com> - 2017-03-14 04:00 +0100
    Re: If Debian support OS certification? Paul Wise <pabs@debian.org> - 2017-03-14 05:20 +0100
      Re: If Debian support OS certification? Paul Wise <pabs@debian.org> - 2017-03-15 01:40 +0100
        RE: If Debian support OS certification? Eric Lai (賴裕文) <Eric_Lai@quantatw.com> - 2017-03-15 09:40 +0100
        Re: If Debian support OS certification? Paul Wise <pabs@debian.org> - 2017-03-17 01:40 +0100
      Re: If Debian support OS certification? Thomas Goirand <zigo@debian.org> - 2017-05-01 23:20 +0200
        Re: If Debian support OS certification? Paul Wise <pabs@debian.org> - 2017-05-02 02:40 +0200
          Re: If Debian support OS certification? Luca Filipozzi <lfilipoz@debian.org> - 2017-05-02 03:10 +0200
          Re: If Debian support OS certification? Ritesh Raj Sarraf <rrs@debian.org> - 2017-05-02 20:00 +0200
            Re: If Debian support OS certification? Paul Wise <pabs@debian.org> - 2017-05-03 11:00 +0200
              Re: If Debian support OS certification? Ben Hutchings <ben@decadent.org.uk> - 2017-05-03 18:20 +0200
                Re: If Debian support OS certification? "Andre Felipe Machado" <andremachado@techforce.com.br> - 2017-05-03 21:30 +0200
                Re: If Debian support OS certification? Paul Wise <pabs@debian.org> - 2017-05-04 02:00 +0200
                  Re: If Debian support OS certification? Steve McIntyre <steve@einval.com> - 2017-05-04 02:10 +0200
                    Re: If Debian support OS certification? Paul Wise <pabs@debian.org> - 2017-05-04 03:20 +0200
                  Re: If Debian support OS certification? Ben Hutchings <ben@decadent.org.uk> - 2017-05-04 02:30 +0200
                    Re: If Debian support OS certification? Paul Wise <pabs@debian.org> - 2017-05-04 03:30 +0200
                  Re: If Debian support OS certification? Thomas Goirand <zigo@debian.org> - 2017-05-17 00:40 +0200
                    Re: If Debian support OS certification? Paul Wise <pabs@debian.org> - 2017-05-17 03:10 +0200
                      Re: If Debian support OS certification? Ian Jackson <ijackson@chiark.greenend.org.uk> - 2017-05-17 15:40 +0200
                        Re: If Debian support OS certification? Paul Wise <pabs@debian.org> - 2017-05-17 16:00 +0200
                        Re: If Debian support OS certification? Holger Levsen <holger@layer-acht.org> - 2017-05-17 16:00 +0200
                          Re: If Debian support OS certification? Zlatan Todoric <zlatan@riseup.net> - 2017-05-18 11:30 +0200
            Re: If Debian support OS certification? Ritesh Raj Sarraf <rrs@debian.org> - 2017-05-16 08:20 +0200
              Re: If Debian support OS certification? Paul Wise <pabs@debian.org> - 2017-05-16 10:20 +0200
          Re: If Debian support OS certification? Thomas Goirand <zigo@debian.org> - 2017-05-04 18:30 +0200
          Re: If Debian support OS certification? Thomas Goirand <zigo@debian.org> - 2017-05-05 17:00 +0200
            Re: If Debian support OS certification? Ben Hutchings <ben@decadent.org.uk> - 2017-05-05 23:50 +0200
              Re: If Debian support OS certification? Luca Filipozzi <lfilipoz@debian.org> - 2017-05-06 04:00 +0200
                Re: If Debian support OS certification? Thomas Goirand <zigo@debian.org> - 2017-05-16 18:20 +0200
                  Re: If Debian support OS certification? Paul Wise <pabs@debian.org> - 2017-05-17 02:20 +0200
                    Re: If Debian support OS certification? Ian Jackson <ijackson@chiark.greenend.org.uk> - 2017-05-17 15:30 +0200
                      Re: If Debian support OS certification? Paul Wise <pabs@debian.org> - 2017-05-17 16:00 +0200
                        Re: If Debian support OS certification? Thomas Goirand <zigo@debian.org> - 2017-05-19 17:50 +0200
                          Re: If Debian support OS certification? Paul Wise <pabs@debian.org> - 2017-05-20 03:40 +0200
            Re: If Debian support OS certification? Tollef Fog Heen <tfheen@err.no> - 2017-05-06 09:40 +0200

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#9244

On Wed, May 17, 2017 at 9:32 PM, Ian Jackson wrote:

> A trustworthy certification report that said "this machine would have
> passed the certification, except that the wifi card requires a
> separately supplied firmware blob from Debian non-free" would be
> extremely useful to many users and potential purchasers.

It also needs "Also, you need to be aware of these other proprietary
components and what their capabilities are", as mentioned.

> I wonder if we could have a certification level (and associated name,
> logo, etc.) that specifically permits exactly this kind of deviation.

Consensus upthread seems to be no logo or "certification" for things
that don't qualify for the agreed-on top level. Still mention the
hardware, but don't "certify" it.

-- 
bye,
pabs

https://wiki.debian.org/PaulWise

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#9245

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On Wed, May 17, 2017 at 02:32:20PM +0100, Ian Jackson wrote:
> A trustworthy certification report that said "this machine would have
> passed the certification, except that the wifi card requires a
> separately supplied firmware blob from Debian non-free" would be
> extremely useful to many users and potential purchasers.
 
my usb controller uses a blob, my cpu uses a blob, my bios is collection of
blobs and my bios-loader is a blob, [...] and my wireless card uses a blob
from debian non-free and then the certification tells me it's all fine except
for the wireless card. Is that really that useful or trustworthy?


-- 
cheers,
	Holger

"[...]" is were I ommited 5-20 more blobs (TPM, graphics card, fingerprint reader,
SSD to name 4) on this machine which only needs one blob from Debian non-free :-)

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#9250

On 05/17/2017 03:49 PM, Holger Levsen wrote:
> On Wed, May 17, 2017 at 02:32:20PM +0100, Ian Jackson wrote:
>> A trustworthy certification report that said "this machine would have
>> passed the certification, except that the wifi card requires a
>> separately supplied firmware blob from Debian non-free" would be
>> extremely useful to many users and potential purchasers.
>  
> my usb controller uses a blob, my cpu uses a blob, my bios is collection of
> blobs and my bios-loader is a blob, [...] and my wireless card uses a blob
> from debian non-free and then the certification tells me it's all fine except
> for the wireless card. Is that really that useful or trustworthy?
>
>
Hi Qubes Holger :D

I assume the above Ian's assertion is still valid from Debian PoV -
Debian main will run fine on hardware with all those blobs except it
will not have wi-fi. If all those blobs (that don't stop Debian main
being perfectly usable) are the issue here than Debian is not good
enough for anything and I think on contrary.

Talking more about all the blobs is very helpful of course, but its not
something Debian will go and solve, and at state where Debian is
(compared to other OS certification) I am leaning towards Ian's
sentiment here.

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#9220

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On Tue, May 2, 2017 at 11:44 PM, Ritesh Raj Sarraf <rrs@debian.org> wrote:

> On Tue, 2017-05-02 at 08:35 +0800, Paul Wise wrote:
> > > What they are interested about, is having *us*, Debian, to certify that
> > > their hardware work on our system, so that their customer trust they
> can
> > > buy it to run Debian. It'd be a bit weird if they were certifying
> > > themselves.
> >
> > I think that Debian members/contributors do not and should not hold a
> > monopoly on verifying that Debian works on a particular piece of
> > hardware.
> >
>
> As members, we should come up with a "Certification Policy" guide. Which
> should
> define what constitutes a particular machine being marked certified. Then a
> testsuite could be built accordingly.
>


I am not sure if this got a page added. But I've created one at [1]. Please
feel free to add any other points I may have missed.

[1] https://wiki.debian.org/InstallingDebianOn/Certification


-- 
Ritesh Raj Sarraf
RESEARCHUT - http://www.researchut.com
"Necessity is the mother of invention."

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#9222

On Tue, May 16, 2017 at 2:09 PM, Ritesh Raj Sarraf wrote:

> I am not sure if this got a page added.

I didn't add one, so I think yours is the first.

> [1] https://wiki.debian.org/InstallingDebianOn/Certification

I've renamed the page into the Hardware/ namespace and made minor fixes:

https://wiki.debian.org/Hardware/Certification

I've also invited Debian derivatives to link to certification programs too:

https://wiki.debian.org/Derivatives/CensusTemplate?action=diff&rev1=85&rev2=86

-- 
bye,
pabs

https://wiki.debian.org/PaulWise

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#9178

On 05/02/2017 02:35 AM, Paul Wise wrote:
> On Tue, May 2, 2017 at 5:15 AM, Thomas Goirand wrote:
> 
>> While it is nice to answer the way you did, here, Debian is missing yet
>> another opportunity that other commercial distro would not. Maybe we
>> should have a BoF at debconf Montreal about this.
> 
> Please do register a BoF, I'd be happy to attend if I can.

I'm still not 100% sure if I can make it to Montreal, though I've never
the less registered such a BoF. The title is:

Vendor hardware certification BoF

Cheers,

Thomas Goirand (zigo)

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#9179

On 05/02/2017 02:35 AM, Paul Wise wrote:
> With my DSA hat on, we don't like being guinea pigs for development
> boards and pre-release hardware. This kind of hardware tends to be
> unreliable and require too much hand-holding. That said, we definitely
> welcome hardware sponsorship and partners.

Absolutely. However, you may know that commercial distros are making
their certification program a non-free (as in: you must pay your beer)
thing. I do believe it'd be a fair way to get free (as in free beer)
hardware for the DSA team. It's up to us to define the terms.

Cheers,

Thomas Goirand (zigo)

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#9180

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On Fri, 2017-05-05 at 16:54 +0200, Thomas Goirand wrote:
> On 05/02/2017 02:35 AM, Paul Wise wrote:
> > With my DSA hat on, we don't like being guinea pigs for development
> > boards and pre-release hardware. This kind of hardware tends to be
> > unreliable and require too much hand-holding. That said, we definitely
> > welcome hardware sponsorship and partners.
> 
> Absolutely. However, you may know that commercial distros are making
> their certification program a non-free (as in: you must pay your beer)
> thing. I do believe it'd be a fair way to get free (as in free beer)
> hardware for the DSA team. It's up to us to define the terms.

Free as in free kittens?

Ben.

-- 
Ben Hutchings
The program is absolutely right; therefore, the computer must be wrong.

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#9181

On Fri, May 05, 2017 at 10:40:10PM +0100, Ben Hutchings wrote:
> On Fri, 2017-05-05 at 16:54 +0200, Thomas Goirand wrote:
> > On 05/02/2017 02:35 AM, Paul Wise wrote:
> > > With my DSA hat on, we don't like being guinea pigs for development
> > > boards and pre-release hardware. This kind of hardware tends to be
> > > unreliable and require too much hand-holding. That said, we definitely
> > > welcome hardware sponsorship and partners.
> > 
> > Absolutely. However, you may know that commercial distros are making
> > their certification program a non-free (as in: you must pay your beer)
> > thing. I do believe it'd be a fair way to get free (as in free beer)
> > hardware for the DSA team. It's up to us to define the terms.
> 
> Free as in free kittens?

I'm not interested in hardware as payment for certification. It's too open to
abuse. Charge a fee for certification testing; use the funds to buy hardware.

-- 
Luca Filipozzi
http://www.crowdrise.com/SupportDebian

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#9228

On 05/06/2017 03:54 AM, Luca Filipozzi wrote:
> On Fri, May 05, 2017 at 10:40:10PM +0100, Ben Hutchings wrote:
>> On Fri, 2017-05-05 at 16:54 +0200, Thomas Goirand wrote:
>>> On 05/02/2017 02:35 AM, Paul Wise wrote:
>>>> With my DSA hat on, we don't like being guinea pigs for development
>>>> boards and pre-release hardware. This kind of hardware tends to be
>>>> unreliable and require too much hand-holding. That said, we definitely
>>>> welcome hardware sponsorship and partners.
>>>
>>> Absolutely. However, you may know that commercial distros are making
>>> their certification program a non-free (as in: you must pay your beer)
>>> thing. I do believe it'd be a fair way to get free (as in free beer)
>>> hardware for the DSA team. It's up to us to define the terms.
>>
>> Free as in free kittens?
> 
> I'm not interested in hardware as payment for certification. It's too open to
> abuse. Charge a fee for certification testing; use the funds to buy hardware.

If we made such a decision, I'd be very supportive of it. We could make
it in a "soft" way, ie tell that we accept some kind of (re-occurring?)
sponsorship, and providing a range of acceptable payment. We could make
such payment not completely mandatory, but strongly recommended. I'm
convinced that, with proper wording (meaning someone *else* than me
would attempt it, as I don't think I'd be the best person to write such
thing), it would work, and help the project to find more sponsors.

Your thoughts?
Cheers,

Thomas Goirand (zigo)

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#9234

On Wed, May 17, 2017 at 12:18 AM, Thomas Goirand wrote:

> If we made such a decision, I'd be very supportive of it. We could make
> it in a "soft" way, ie tell that we accept some kind of (re-occurring?)
> sponsorship, and providing a range of acceptable payment. We could make
> such payment not completely mandatory, but strongly recommended. I'm
> convinced that, with proper wording (meaning someone *else* than me
> would attempt it, as I don't think I'd be the best person to write such
> thing), it would work, and help the project to find more sponsors.

I think it would be acceptable for the certification process to
promote donating to Debian and or becoming Debian partners, but not to
make the certification conditional on payment. That seems to be what
you are saying here.

-- 
bye,
pabs

https://wiki.debian.org/PaulWise

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#9242

Paul Wise writes ("Re: If Debian support OS certification?"):
> On Wed, May 17, 2017 at 12:18 AM, Thomas Goirand wrote:
> > If we made such a decision, I'd be very supportive of it. We could make
> > it in a "soft" way, ie tell that we accept some kind of (re-occurring?)
> > sponsorship, and providing a range of acceptable payment. We could make
> > such payment not completely mandatory, but strongly recommended. I'm
> > convinced that, with proper wording (meaning someone *else* than me
> > would attempt it, as I don't think I'd be the best person to write such
> > thing), it would work, and help the project to find more sponsors.
> 
> I think it would be acceptable for the certification process to
> promote donating to Debian and or becoming Debian partners, but not to
> make the certification conditional on payment. That seems to be what
> you are saying here.

I would be in favour of asking for payment.

The work of actually doing the testing is tedious.  If we think people
should be doing that, they should be paid for their time.

We shouldn't be expecting hardware vendors to self-certify.  That is
an invitation to trouble.  We don't have the effort to properly audit
such a thing.  (See above.)

I think the only sensible structure is probably for us to outsource
the certification testing, and administration.  There must be at least
only mildly-useless corporations who could handle this for us.  Of
course the Debian project could contract with some of our existing
contributors, but I think we should engage in a proper supplier
selection process.

I suggest we would set the testing fee to cover the price we pay the
outsourced contractor, plus a 10% donation to Debian.

Ian.

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#9246

On Wed, May 17, 2017 at 9:28 PM, Ian Jackson wrote:

> I would be in favour of asking for payment.

I think only optional donations are acceptable, I've written a few
mails upthread about that.

> The work of actually doing the testing is tedious.  If we think people
> should be doing that, they should be paid for their time.

They will be, either by their vendor employer or vendor clients or
people who use hardware they want certified. I guess, like the rest of
Debian, there could be volunteers doing certification too, if anyone
finds it interesting (some might like playing with new hardware a
lot).

> We shouldn't be expecting hardware vendors to self-certify.  That is
> an invitation to trouble.  We don't have the effort to properly audit
> such a thing.  (See above.)

I don't see a problem if it is mostly automated via a live CD.

> I think the only sensible structure is probably for us to outsource
> the certification testing, and administration.  There must be at least
> only mildly-useless corporations who could handle this for us.  Of
> course the Debian project could contract with some of our existing
> contributors, but I think we should engage in a proper supplier
> selection process.
>
> I suggest we would set the testing fee to cover the price we pay the
> outsourced contractor, plus a 10% donation to Debian.

Debian is not a legal entity so we can't enter into contracts. We
would have to ask our TOs if they can do this on our behalf.

I'm also not sure our donors would think this is a useful use of
Debian funds; it mostly benefits vendors and large organisations who
insist on someone else testing Debian instead of themselves. Debian
itself doesn't get improved when $giantserver is tested and shown to
run perfectly.

Selecting contractors only from existing contributors sounds like
corruption to me. I also think we do not want a single entity having a
monopoly on certification. We also have a lot of people already doing
consulting around Debian, so it makes sense to at minimum notify them
about the possibility of certification work, and direct vendors to
them. If we do want to force exclusivity (not convinced we do) of
people who can perform certification tests, a new list of 'certified'
certification folks could be created (like we have for consultants,
CD/preinstalled vendors etc), including any possible volunteers (some
folks might be interested) and willing consultants, who agreed to play
by the rules and only certify appropriate systems.

https://www.debian.org/consultants/

-- 
bye,
pabs

https://wiki.debian.org/PaulWise

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#9256

Paul,

The use of a live-cd wouldn't work, simply because we also may want to
certify heterogeneous hardware (think about your USB missile launcher
example). Therefore, a general case live-cd will not cover all cases. In
such cases, self-certification wouldn't work.

On 05/17/2017 03:50 PM, Paul Wise wrote:
> On Wed, May 17, 2017 at 9:28 PM, Ian Jackson wrote:
>> I suggest we would set the testing fee to cover the price we pay the
>> outsourced contractor, plus a 10% donation to Debian.
> 
> Debian is not a legal entity so we can't enter into contracts. We
> would have to ask our TOs if they can do this on our behalf.

The legal entity granting the use of the log would be SPI. Therefore,
SPI could have this role.

> Debian
> itself doesn't get improved when $giantserver is tested and shown to
> run perfectly.

The OS / project probably not. Though the Debian organization and brand
would be clearly improved.

> Selecting contractors only from existing contributors sounds like
> corruption to me. I also think we do not want a single entity having a
> monopoly on certification. We also have a lot of people already doing
> consulting around Debian, so it makes sense to at minimum notify them
> about the possibility of certification work, and direct vendors to
> them. If we do want to force exclusivity (not convinced we do) of
> people who can perform certification tests, a new list of 'certified'
> certification folks could be created (like we have for consultants,
> CD/preinstalled vendors etc), including any possible volunteers (some
> folks might be interested) and willing consultants, who agreed to play
> by the rules and only certify appropriate systems.
> 
> https://www.debian.org/consultants/

Yes, we want openness and fairness in the process, even in the list of
approved people doing the certification. Though IMO, this shouldn't be
our mail focus *for the moment*. IMO, we should concentrate on having
one first hardware maker certified through a 3rd party. Incrementally
improving the process is the only realistic way to go.

Cheers,

Thomas Goirand (zigo)

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#9257

On Fri, May 19, 2017 at 11:43 PM, Thomas Goirand wrote:

> The use of a live-cd wouldn't work, simply because we also may want to
> certify heterogeneous hardware (think about your USB missile launcher
> example). Therefore, a general case live-cd will not cover all cases. In
> such cases, self-certification wouldn't work.

There are options for solving this:

Install the full range of hardware support packages in the live-cd.

Install isenkram on the live-cd:

https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/isenkram
https://wiki.debian.org/AppStream/Guidelines#Announcing_supported_hardware

> Though the Debian organization and brand would be clearly improved.

Well, that depends which segment of our user base you are focused on.
If you care about corporate use of Debian, sure it definitely will. It
doesn't help regular users, for them the InstallingDebianOn and
ChrootOnAndroid are probably enough. Some may even be put off by
pandering to corporate interests, but we do a fair bit of that
already.

> Yes, we want openness and fairness in the process, even in the list of
> approved people doing the certification.

I'm having trouble thinking of an appropriate certifier approval
process, any thoughts?

> IMO, we should concentrate on having one first
> hardware maker certified through a 3rd party.

Quanta seems like the obvious choice, since they asked for it recently.

Is anyone aware of an appropriate 3rd party?

> Incrementally improving the process is the only realistic way to go.

It is also important to get the fundamentals correct.

-- 
bye,
pabs

https://wiki.debian.org/PaulWise

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#9182

]] Thomas Goirand 

> I do believe it'd be a fair way to get free (as in free beer) hardware
> for the DSA team. It's up to us to define the terms.

It would mean we'd end up with a hodgepodge of different servers from
different vendors with no coherent OOB access methods, we'd need to
track a lot of different firmware versions and so on.  It's not
something we want.

-- 
Tollef Fog Heen
UNIX is user friendly, it's just picky about who its friends are

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