By “shipped with the kernel”, do you mean by the kernel people? Or just by distros?
Because I don’t think the kernel people ship anything proprietary. Distros do, because distros are in the business of actually putting together a functional operating system, but that doesn’t make the kernel nonfree any more than some distros shipping Steam by default makes the kernel nonfree. (Personally I like that our distro of choice doesn’t ship Steam preinstalled, but I like having nonfree wifi firmware on the install disc because it’s really hard to get wifi drivers when you don’t have working wifi.)
By “shipped with the kernel”, do you mean by the kernel people? Or just by distros?
Because I don’t think the kernel people ship anything proprietary. Distros do, because distros are in the business of actually putting together a functional operating system, but that doesn’t make the kernel nonfree any more than some distros shipping Steam by default makes the kernel nonfree. (Personally I like that our distro of choice doesn’t ship Steam preinstalled, but I like having nonfree wifi firmware on the install disc because it’s really hard to get wifi drivers when you don’t have working wifi.)
– Frost