I see a lot of comments about, "read a book," and, "not that hard," but that isn't at the heart of the article. The crux of this is should distributions focus more on inclusion of non-free components to ensure ease of use for end users. Many drivers require firmware-driver interaction that has been reverse engineered to get a level of functionality, but some require a binary be brought into kernel space and be used as the interface between the driver and firmware. Some people call these binary blobs. They are entirely non-open, unknown, unsecure, unfree code interacting with high levels of permission in kernel space. Debian does not do it. They don't want people using that crap, because it against their GNU/FSF ideology. OpenBSD does not do it. They don't want anyone using that crap, because it is against good security practice to give unread code any kind of permissions. Whenever anyone complains about, "we'd use your stuff if only you did X for us," the proper response is no response at all. When people don't want it as it is provided they can just change it their god damned selves. Hell Ubuntu is the stuff trying to draw in newbies, /they/ include those binary only kernel blobs, not Debian.