GNU Sends Cease & Desist To Libreboot Developer

[@BrodieRobertson]

Leah sent me one minor nitpick, there's only 2 developers on GNU Boot, the commits from "Alper Nebi Yasak" are actually cherrypicked from the Libreboot project so the vast majority of the additional changes are just pulling back in Libreboot changes.

[@spvillano]

I'm reminded of Microsoft's battle with Sun. My Java is the only way, which lost, as Sun did originate the damned thing. Here, not as simple, but close. But now, it's binary blobs should be illegal! And none have ever tried to figure out a computer without an OS in person, save to load tons of such blobs and complain about them.

[@thelanavishnuorchestra]

Hilarious addendum to this saga. I love the GNU utils and use the g++ and wouldn't want them to go away, but I would like Richard Stallman (who is a bad person) and all the adherents to his ridiculous fundamentalism to go tf away. Libreboot has the right take on this, more freedom, less fundamentalism.

[@robertkiestov3734]

“Leah” is also not Leah. He is a man.

[@KaiHenningsen]

@@robertkiestov3734 And you know that how exactly?

[@bartolomeothesatyr]

@@robertkiestov3734 You do not get to dictate to another human being what name they answer to.

[@max-mr5xf]

The FOSS world has a single major problem: Too many enthusiasts thinking their way is the only right one instead of working together

[@paulie-g]

It's the old joke: "3 anarchists hold a discussion, 4 distinct and incompatible platforms emerge, the bloody internecine fighting starts almost immediately." With that said, the free software maximalists have done us all a favour by shifting the Overton window. While I've never subscribed to their extremism, their extremism has produced some results that have been very useful to the rest of us.

[@vaisakh_km]

I DiSaGrEe with with your statement... it is the freedom of FOSS world, not a problem of FOSS.... 😤 I don't wanted to work together with you because you are wrong, so i am going to fork this comment section...

[@toraxmalu]

@@vaisakh_km go-on and try to be a new jesus… and that is simply the whole point…

[@vaisakh_km]

@@toraxmalu no, i don't believe in jesus i am going to start my own cult...

[@toraxmalu]

@@vaisakh_km that I meant… goon and be a new jesus and try salvation of the whole [Linux]world :D - cheers :D

[@Aoitori365]

easier for them to pick on a small dev than go to after Redhat for acting like microsoft

[@jimmyneutron129]

sure

[@JacksonNick-j6i]

​@EyeseeUriP RedHat had better lawyers. That's why FSF had no balls to go after em.

[@6iaZkMagW7EFs]

What did Red Hat do wrong? /gen

[@Ralzone]

@@6iaZkMagW7EFs They went the DEI path, are woke. To my knowledge that's it. Personally I don't support it, as any sane person. That doesn't mean I'm against what people decide they'd like to do or not do in their bed, I couldn't care less. Good code is good code, no matter where it comes from, by removing non-woke supporters free and open source projects are removing a big portion of supporters, and just making it less free and open, by having big incentives for people not to speak up and support other distros, just look at openSuse elections. Also, people don't want to use software that hates them, that's why openMandriva grew in popularity by declaring itself as an anti-woke linux distro, I have thought about switching to it, but as of right now I don't have the time to, also "anti woke distro" feels more like a gimmick than an actual long-term distro to daily drive, so unless stuff breaks on my system I won't.

[@MechMK1]

A lot of the "free software" community can be summed up as one part of people wanting to make something useful, and the other screaming franticly that it isn't according to their extremely narrow standards.

[@FineWine-v4.0]

You mean good standards, Didn't know that making a software free as in freedom was narrow

[@lunlunnnnn]

​@@FineWine-v4.0if the choice is between running ancient hardware that can only barely crawl along when running modern software, but 100% FOSS, or running modern hardware that's actually good enough but requires a few blobs, I'd much rather take the blobs

[@sebastianbauer4768]

@@FineWine-v4.0 Not everyone is willing to die on that hill. Breaking compatibility with all recent CPU and GPUs is not a "good" standard, it is crazy ideology. Not much different from religious or political fanaticism, my way or the highway and consequences be damned.

[@ghosthunter0950]

I mean, I don't see anything wrong with the standards. we do need someone to actively focus on getting us to their direction at least. But if they want to bring people over to their projects you can't do that to the point it's a detriment to the user. You have to settle and only get rid of proprietary blobs as time goes on.

[@FineWine-v4.0]

@@sebastianbauer4768 That's a hardware manufacturer issue As stupid as they might be, they're still in the right 90% of the time You keep making compromises & then the proprietary tech vultures will swoop in

[@aDifferentJT]

It’s very sad when an ideology based around sharing software and progress through collaboration breeds vitriol that hinders sharing software and collaboration.

[@pixl_xip]

Agreed

[@isofruitfruit9357]

I think the ideology part is fine, this reeks of arrogance and hurt egos on the gnu side of things that's using ideology as justification for antagonizing the Libreboot project.

[@plebisMaximus]

They treat it almost like a super strict religion. Any sins and you're excommunicated, shunned and shamed, regardless of how much you've actually helped their cause.

[@JEM_Tank]

The ideology isn't really the issue, it's the people not trying to collaborate

[@RadikaRules]

@@JEM_Tank You try "collaborating" with people who screw you over when you do try You can't work with people who treat software like a cult, case and point. GNU

[@DashieTM]

No wonder people no longer support the FSF/GNU, this kind of behavior is simply hurting "free software" as a whole.

[@himagainstill]

And of course the guy sending the C&D has stallmanupport in his email signature. Because when you're basically stealing someone else's project, nothing says "we care about users and collaborators actually" like defending an abusive shitstain excuse for a human being.

[@formbi]

I support them, but this is stupid

[@Xmetalfanx]

like i said in my reply ... right on the surface i agreed with their idea of "truly Libre" and not truly Libre .... AFTER THAT ... like not reaching out to Leah and acting like adults about it (FSF/GNU) ... they COMPLETELY lost me

[@PanosPitsi]

@@formbi they are speedrunning becoming the rust foundation

[@FineWine-v4.0]

Well they're the only thing standing between FOSS & domination by big tech We all know how weak the linux community is with pseudointellectual saboteurs like Lunduke & this RedHat shill

[@industrialcream]

This whole situation is absolutely bonkers... The GNU-boot devs are definitely in the wrong here, & I find it hypocritical of them to try to use trademark law to bully someone - you know, that same trademark law that they're supposed to hate???? Wild.

[@insu_na]

Pretty sure Free/Libre people still support trademarks, they just don't support copyright. Trademarks are for the protection of the user, to ensure that they don't get duped into using a product of someone who isn't who they pretend to be. Copyright is just bullshit to stifle innovation.

[@JorgetePanete]

​@@insu_naHow? I can make a cartoon named Winnie the Pooh and I legally don't have to care about whether others think it's the original

[@therealb888]

​@@JorgetePanetethat's a real brilliant example. Bravo bravo!

[@insu_na]

@@JorgetePanete Reminder that I said *protection of the user* not *protection of the creator*

[@JorgetePanete]

@@insu_na My comment is for both, the user can just make sure by itself

[@BarryBazzawillWilliams]

Hmm, software devs with communication difficulties. Never.

[@ea_naseer]

shut ins for life 😂😂😂

[@ME0WMERE]

that's the problem when the best devs are autistic

[@FineWine-v4.0]

​@@ea_naseerThese shut-ins make your life easy What have you accomplished

[@CPSPD]

@@FineWine-v4.0I’ve never sent an erroneous cease and desist letter to an innocent project to try and shut them down

[@FineWine-v4.0]

@@CPSPD But you have crapped on them

[@AbandonedVoid]

This is why we have the phrase "no good deed goes unpunished"

[@linrono]

The GNU/FSF community being openly hostile towards Leah again? People must have stopped talking about the last time.

[@chrono5037]

When ever GNU/FSF hasn't been hostile towards anyone.

[@chrono5037]

I mean seems like any project they touch is not free enough to them, so they feel obligated to atleast undermine project's that do better work than them and then make forks of those same project's that doesn't work on 99% of platforms

[@nothingtoseeherelolkek]

@@chrono5037and that’s why everyone make fun of them

[@linrono]

@chrono5037 Yeah, they take after their fearless leader too much sometimes. I'm all for the teaching of the dangers of closed source software, but the zealotry usually hurts progression, in my opinion.

[@vaisakh_km]

When was the last time?

[@TazzeOptical]

Members of the GNU Project / FSF being mindless zealots? who would have guessed If the Stallmanites had their way, Linux would be as niche as TempleOS, the server market would be dominated exclusively by some flavor of BSD and we would all hear about the year of the BSD Desktop being this year for real this time, every year.

[@groos3449]

The good timeline. Imagine having ZFS integrated into the kernel

[@himagainstill]

Oh no, it would be much worse than that. The year of BSD on the desktop would have actually arrived, instead of being "next year" for 30 years straight.

[@knghtbrd]

TempleOS at least has meme power behind it.

[@kreuner11]

Stallman is too free software radical imo

[@rigierish3807]

@@himagainstill It would but it also would be 90% of proprietary stuff, becoming a sort of PlayStation 3 but on PC and you would have to literally break into your system to get rid of all of it to have a truly free and open source OS, assuming it could run even a 10th of the programs on your PC after that. This universe of mostly Linux in the Unix world with only 3% of the market share in 2023 but at least, everything is open source is definitely much better than any other scenario we could've had.

[@foogod4237]

This is exactly the sort of reason that, even though I am a big proponent of free software in general, I usually try to have as little to do with any actual GNUtards as possible... GNU is responsible, and should get a lot of credit for, a lot of the success and evolution of the free software movement back in the day, but noawadays most of the people involved with the FSF/GNU organization and name really seem more like trolls than developers, and often do more harm than good to the movement as a whole, IMHO... (I also have always refused to call it "GNU/Linux", because if you're more concerned about your own publicity and credit than about making useful software, you deserve all of the annoyance and frustration you can get from people refusing to take you seriously.)

[@FKLinguista]

I unfortunately have to agree with the proprietary reduction strategy in general. I have a Brother laserjet printer and up until 2 days ago was using the FOSS brlaser drivers that came with my distro's repos. However, I began noticing that certain high DPI documents (particularly images) would not print. The printer would start receiving the data and then just not print it. CUPS marked the job as complete, but it obviously failed. The only workaround was to lower the DPI, which gave me some crappy-looking printouts. I then relented and installed Brother's drivers from their site. It was odd, because simply extracting the PPD file from their package and pointing CUPS to that didn't work. I HAD to also install i386 CUPS packages along with the Brother driver for it to even work, which seemed like bloat to me. However, the end result was that my printer now prints in high DPI just fine. So while I'd rather support a FOSS driver, as a non-dev I have to unfortunately use what works to get my day-to-day work done.

[@complexity5545]

CUPS...Cups is starting to remove stuff, so alot of workers that need to print are going to wake up one Monday and their printer is going to behave differently.

[@himagainstill]

Had I been in Leah's position, the entirety of my response to the demand would be: "Hi Adrien, This you? Regards"

[@collectorguy3919]

I don't mind FSF playing the role of purist critics, because smart people know when they have a point and when to ignore them. But, I get angry when FSF tries to actively undermine real progress because they insist on immediate perfection [their version] instead of understanding the real world is nuanced.

[@Poldovico]

Yeah, the purist perspective is worth hearing. They just need to stop demanding people obey after they heard.

[@Waitwhat469]

100% we should keep pushing for total libre software, but getting more people into FOSS. The thing needed to do the first goal. Takes pragmatic choices as well. You need both!

[@Thanatos2996]

The FSF is the embodiment of the saying “the perfect is the enemy of the good”.

[@Finkelfunk]

I kind of understand both sides, on the one hand evading all proprietary code in todays computing world is not just a challenge, it is quite literally downright impossible with microcode on things like SSD controllers, CPUs and GPUs or main boards and chipsets. On the other hand I understand the FSF in their definition of "libre" because they try to actually enforce the fact that the libre label should stand for something. Their reaction is premium tier garbage though.

[@FireStormOOO_]

"impossible" might be overstating it, but it'd be a reverse engineering effort for the history books and need resources to match

[@memovilmx6239]

@@FireStormOOO_ on what would you start?

[@totally_not_a_bot]

I saw a quote recently, I think from Napoleon. Something along the lines of impossible being a word for those who are afraid to try.

[@pseudo_goose]

It is not impossible. There are computing platforms that work perfectly fine without any proprietary blobs, like most microcontrollers (and possibly some RISC-V SoCs, although I haven't tried those yet). If existing software support and/or maximum performance are important to you, then I would agree that those platforms are difficult or impossible to find. But at this point, that's not important to me when I'm tinkering. I would rather tinker freely, at the bare metal, than be subject to the limitations of third-party support.

[@thewhitefalcon8539]

@@totally_not_a_bot Sadly a lot of them are cryptographically signed and encrypted. A lot more aren't. Also I'm fine with redistributing blobs that are free to redistribute. That's just a ROM with extra steps, and the FSF is okay with ROMs.

[@BobDoe_69]

best part of your channel, getting news like this. I wouldnt have discovered otherwise

[@felipelopes3171]

My IQ dropped by 5 points after hearing this story.

[@RockyPixel]

I've said it before but it bears repeating, if Linux is a religion then FSF/GNU are like the Amish of computing.

[@VolkerHett]

Back in the early days of me using Linux (Kernel 0.95p7) the FSF/GNU guys insisted on using GNU in the name. There where a lot of Hurd feelings about using GNU with the wrong kernel 😅

[@memovilmx6239]

@@VolkerHett Them still insist that linux ain't a thing but GNU/LINUX. That hasn't changed a bit

[@janlaan9602]

Too be fair, most Linus distros are 90% gnu packages and the rest is the Linux kernel. It's kind of weird that it got the name of the kernel I stead of the larger part of most distros

[@AbteilungsleiterinBeiAntifaEV]

​@@janlaan9602lmao in what world is any linux distro "90% gnu"?

[@GregoryMcLean]

Unfortunatly this is Stallman's personalitry coming through even though he is not particularly active with FSF anymore.

[@Dark_Jaguar]

I've seen this attitude in modding communities and it confuses the hell out of me. Some modder mods a game, then someone mods the mod, and the first modder gets furious that anyone dared mod their mod without permission. All I'm thinking is "hey, you modded some game without the developer's position, who are you to get mad when someone does the same to you?".

[@AbandonedVoid]

That's a bit different. Modders might not receive proper credit or traction when someone mods their mod. When they mod the game, everyone who uses that mod knows the game it's for and need to also have the game.

[@Dark_Jaguar]

@@AbandonedVoid Hey I'm all about giving credit where it's due, but let's say that's a given, then what?

[@revoblam7975]

​@@Dark_Jaguarlet's use Minecraft as an example, a mod may have a certain mechanic that, while annoying, forces you to think in creative ways or showcases aspects of the game you didn't consider (did you know lava dripping can fill a cauldron?), then someone mods your mod to remove said mechanic and changes a few extra things as "Quality of Life" and bundles it into a mod pack that becomes popular in part because of the mod originally hypothesized. I think in such a case theres reason to be angry, and even protective if it happened already, this kind of scenarios just place distrust in others that is very hard to get rid off. Funnily, I would analogue it to when someone breaks into your car or house, you lose a part of the sanctity that came with the building, it no longer feels safe.

[@revoblam7975]

I'm not saying it's not something that you should not come to terms with or never expect to happen, but programming is partly a creative endeavor, and irrumping upon someone else's creativity (sometimes to the detriment of what they wished for) can really bleak their outlook on the art. I'm honestly amazed that the concept of forking itself is not heavily controversial.

[@Dark_Jaguar]

@@revoblam7975 I don't get that at all. So long as they give credit, what's wrong with modding a mod? You modded someone else's code in the first place (Minecraft) so what's the problem here? Breaking into a car... seriously don't get hyperbolic. That's a ridiculous analogy and you knew it when you wrote it.

[@Queldonus]

The FOSS community’s greatest challenge is not Apple, or Google, or Microsoft, it is the FOSS community itself.

[@howardwhite9773]

"We have seen the enemy and they is us!" Walt Kelly in "Pogo"

[@SnowyRVulpix]

I would argue that Microsoft does more good for open source than these guys do…

[@tsalVlog]

💯

[@emanuellandeholm5657]

I'm not what some would call a religious person, but I feel like interjecting an Amen! here.

[@Natalietrans]

As a FOSS enthusiast myself I see a community thinking that someday we’ll overtake big tech and the closed source world in the near future is a community overestimating itself.

[@rayjaymor8754]

GNU and FSF really do start to feel like the People's Front Of Judea from Life Of Brian. Just starting arguments for the sake of having a fight sometimes.

[@wolf2965]

That Phoronix article is actually quite a strong argument for the C&D arguments to be valid - if the alternative is being confused for the real thing, it does fulfill some of the requirements for trademark infringement. It does not matter what Leah wrote, it does matter that it got confused anyway. It's still a dumb battle by the GNU Project/FSF, though.

[@VoyivodaFTW1]

I think this is one of those situations where the GNUBoot creator knows they can't really win because the battle they're fighting isn't about making the software better. they just don't like the Leah. If i were to speculate, forking Libreboot was just a formality.

[@double0028]

Forking a project when you think it is going in the wrong direction is one of the really nice perks of free software. Multiple such projects succeeded such as mate, trinity, funtoo, and devuan to just name a few. Such a shame (and painfully ironic) that the gnu-boot people can't seem to do the same.

[@paulie-g]

Yes, the ability to fork is absolutely good. The fork is not the problem - underhanded attempts to poach developers and legal threats are the problem. Even a "hostile" fork doesn't have to be actually hostile, and ought to remain respectful.

[@ps5hasnogames55]

I wouldn't really say Trinity succeeded. That codebase is disgusting and they just forked Qt 3 instead of porting it to newer versions. Devuan has like 3 users and MATE is a rotting.

[@The_Lawnmower_Man]

And Cinnamon.

[@gbfgtki]

LibreOffice as well

[@vitordelima]

GNOME has a lot of forks trying to fix its mess and this is a very bad sign for the project. For example MATE, Linux Mint's Cinnamon, Muffin and MintTools, elementary OS's Pantheon, Budgie, a replacement for GNOME Software and others.

[@Beryesa.]

Most sensible GNU decisions:

[@FatDawlf]

Yet another certified GNU/FSF moment How did they fall from grace so badly as to begin doing this?

[@RadikaRules]

Well, the obvious cult of personality towards Stallman is a clear inflection point

[@JorgetePanete]

​@@RadikaRulesLet me interject for a moment, what you're referring to as Stallman is actually Richard Stallman,

[@DrKartoffelsalat]

@@JorgetePanete AcKtsChuLly it's GNU/Stallman, or maybe even GNU+Stallman :P

[@memovilmx6239]

@@DrKartoffelsalat no nono It's GNU==Libre==¡FREEEEEE! (as in William Wallace) == Stallman

[@DanielRumbacher]

i think the new motto with the fsf is -negative publicity is still publicity-

[@imzesok]

Damn, she did a really nice thing to help them, and got threatened for it. that's pretty messed up, yet weirdly common these days.

[@Nunya58294]

Yeah get used to it. Idiots think this is the new norm.

[@robertkiestov3734]

He*

[@vitasomething]

@@robertkiestov3734 damn thats so epic big chungus keanu reeves wholesome 100 of you, i bet ugandan knuckles elon musk is proud of you much.

[@robertkiestov3734]

@@vitasomething your family will use your real name when you’re gone

[@vitasomething]

@@robertkiestov3734 eerrrmmm well that just happened... someone give that kind stranger reddit gold, because you sir just won the internet! gets an updoot from me my brother in doge.

[@Geenimetsuri]

Ideological purity wars in FOSS suck. Unless you're Stallman, don't stress.

[@Parker8752]

I understand wanting to have completely free software, including firmware, but at the same time one can't just assume that people have the money to just buy specific hardware - especially if they need a laptop. I have never owned a laptop that could install an official Debian release until Debian started offering official releases that included support for non-free firmware. There are only a small handful of manufacturers even interested in making laptops capable of running properly without any binary blobs, and because they're serving a relatively niche crowd, their products are far more expensive than I can realistically buy.

[@mikereynolds1368]

When did GNU change from meaning GNU's Not UNIX to GNU's Not Useable? Maybe the GNU guys are eating to much dead toe skin? As a long time user of GNU software I truly appreciate what GNU has enabled Linux to become. That said, it's rather ludicrous to demand people switch to software that is unusable for its intended purpose. Upholding your ideals won't boot your laptop.o

[@leoleonvids]

as a dead toe skin eater, we don't claim them

[@mikereynolds1368]

@@leoleonvids LMAO as long as it's your own (and not Stallman's), I'll allow it.

[@complexity5545]

Welp, that's enough nerd internet for the day. A picture Stallman chomping on a toe skin or nail flashed in my brain. I'm out. Its like watching straight p0rn, and then some g@y stuff comes up. Time to turn off the computer. I'm out.

[@smithrockford-dv1nb]

GNU was good when linux first started, we must abandon them. I am already in the works replacing my coreutils with less bloated variants than what gnu offers

[@nyankers]

The real challenge is how much software that relies on their bloat.

[@mr.dingleberry4882]

More segmentation yay!! Just use whatever works for you and dont encourage foss enjoyers to abandon anything, it will only work against what you and I both believe in

[@indigomizumi]

What makes this whole affair all the more amusing is that Libreboot was briefly endorsed by the FSF.

[@merthyr1831]

watched the update video first and saw this second. I'm with Leah on this. A shoddy maintained hostile fork is a total farce that the FSF didn't need. Some dudes need to just chill sometimes

[@Lampe2020]

The ability to fork Open Source projects is both a good an a bad thing - Everyone can easily make an own project based on another but it also splits up the developers and makes them not all contribute to the same project.

[@marcogenovesi8570]

This is based on the flawed assumption that if there was a single project then everybody would contribute to it. It's not like that, it has never been like that

[@Lampe2020]

@@marcogenovesi8570 I didn't assume anything for that comment. It's just like there are too many forks of some projects that do basically the same thing as another fork, with only extremely minor differences. And having only mone project that does a specific thing doesn't force anybody to contribute to it.

[@marcogenovesi8570]

@@Lampe2020 Why you called it "a bad thing" then? It's not like hard to find the upstream and forllow that. The main reason people make forks of projects is because of design differences or to do a quick hack/fix for their own usecase. Or in other words either because upstream would not accept their contribution, or they can't be arsed to write good code that can actually be merged.

[@Lampe2020]

@@marcogenovesi8570 It may not be hard for you and me to find the upstream, but for users that are new to the system it's just confusing to have several nearly-identical programs by different maintainers.

[@woobilicious.]

@@marcogenovesi8570 Because some forks are bad, Oracle maintains it's own proprietary fork of ZFS, Apple's Darwin is a fork of FreeBSD some of it is still Open Source, but the good stuff like drivers are closed source, Chromium is BSD so Google can maintain a proprietary fork called Chrome and avoid dual licensing bullshit. Getting Linux running on the M1 required huge amounts of reverse engineering and extra effort, that could have been avoided if Darwin was GPL or similar. GPL encourages sharing because it demands the release of source code under the same license, People have been critical of Google forking Linux for Android, but the GPL maintains some sense of sharing and cross pollination, the same can't be said for the permissively licensed android apps that come with AOSP that Google's decided to delete, and replace with their own proprietary version on the Play Store, because everyone makes their own proprietary apps that were once based off the AOSP versions but do not contribute back. A fork is only good for everyone if it remains open source.

[@Dayanto]

Wait, so this only had to do with their use of the _GNU_ trademark. Well that was anticlimactic. This is basically a complete non-story.

[@SkittlesWrap]

This is a two sided problem where the right side and wrong side depend on how you look at things. From the GNU Boot side, no compromise is the way to create the bigger change. If binary blobs begin to be included, the community is being led to believe that the end goal of fully free firmware has been accomplish, leading to less change or even backtracking. From the libre boot side, if you don't include binaries, you gain zero traction in getting the community to grow and start asking hardware manufacturers to support libre boot efforts. It ends up being a chicken and egg situation, really.

[@yearswriter]

It would be, if one side wasn't so clearly hostile. There should've been a proper grown-up dialogue. Not this.

[@SkittlesWrap]

@@yearswriter I'm treating both groups as grown-ups to bring to light a real concern that constantly occurs between ideology and pragmatism. But, yeah, GNU Boot's lead clearly has some issue going on.

[@kelvinpina8815]

they could collaborated with her to make the fully libre one, and she could even link it in the website. but they decided to make a useless fork.

[@monkev1199]

Boiling the frog is going to be easier than putting every card in the table.

[@breadmoth6443]

the problem is ideological purity.....its nice on paper to have such a free 100% "libre" software, but there is also reality. I need my system to work still.

[@raisofahri5797]

heck debian are allows non free firmware recently. and most Linux distro already allowed non free stuff. it's gnu thing

[@arjix8738]

If only such a similar thing happened in the past to teach us that we don't live in an ideal world. Oh wait it did, communism was attempted and failed horribly. Communism on paper sounded great for the working class, but in reality it was not.

[@autohmae]

The people who want this, want to buy hardware that is supported by this software. They don't mind looking at the list of supported hardware and choosing from that. They already look at the hardware closely if it would align with their ideas (relatively dump hardware without smart firmware).

[@breadmoth6443]

@@arjix8738 my parents can attest to this, as they fled from a commie nation back in the 1980s, and i have no recollection of living in a commie country only because i was really young at the time anyways, but yea i'll take my parents word for it, versus those today who said it wasn't real communism, lol.

[@breadmoth6443]

@@raisofahri5797 yea finally, and anyways the net installer already had the binary blobs for your wifi before that. good luck with GNU only though, suffice to say you probably don't even get a 1Gbps ethernet support yet (if im wrong tell me), let along anything faster, and good luck getting any wifi , lol.

[@worldcomicsreview354]

"You are free to take the sourcecode and make derivatives of it. Not like that."

[@vilijanac]

What are the chances that both boot and kernel in the future are coming burned on a special SSD? You can update it once a year for around $10 by replacing it.

[@nullvoid3545]

Finally!! free software all the way down!! 🤣😂🤣😂🤣

[@vilijanac]

@@nullvoid3545 lol, lockdown software is more likely. You can't change any blobs to inject viruses. Plus everything boots up 10 times faster.

[@nullvoid3545]

@@vilijanac I was laughing at how the FSF certifies blobs inside embedded devices like the firmware of an ssd as "free software" and so A disposable drive with an OS write locked onto it might technically count even if the binarys are proprietary. Was that not the joke you were making?

[@vilijanac]

@@nullvoid3545 No joke was on Freesoftware foundation, kind of. But with question was serious. You have a motherboard that will boot only from a certain bus which is to the small SSD card.

[@jasonhill8696]

@@nullvoid3545 you mean like a mask rom?

[@emiliocespedes3685]

This appeared under "new to you" to me and I thought they had started stuff up again 😭 KZbin is a mess.

[@zBrain0]

These systems need to exist for those that end up in an unfortunate position of needing them to run on hardware they may not have chosen. But anywhere where there is a choice people should choose hardware that can be supported by open source. Case in point, your MacBook example. If somebody gives you a MacBook and you want to run Linux on it it would be great. But if you go looking for a laptop don't buy the Mac hardware, because at the end of the day you are giving your money to a company that wants to lock everything down.

[@wisnoskij]

You keep saying that they "tried to call it libreboot, and then stopped when asked" but you are showing their URL is literally still libreboot, the website title is Libreboot, and the project is refereed to as Libreboot in the text. I Dont see any reference to GNUboot anywhere other than the original Libreboot posts about the hostile fork. In what way are they not still impersonating the libreboot project?

[@BrodieRobertson]

The website hasn't changed but the name on the savannah has

[@SkyyySi]

Ah, another episode of "Neckbeards Vs. the real world"

[@pixl_xip]

Hi Edit, now that I’ve watched the full video: People are trying to help the same cause, so why would the cease and desist somebody **who’s helping the same cause**??? People confuse me. 😅 Great video though

[@hartmutholzgraefe]

DejaVu coming up about the FSF failed to get their PHP3 fork going back in PHP4 license change days. I was even interested ... until I actually met RMS in person ... :0

[@simpleprogrammingcodes]

Well, I think it's Libreboot's fault. They could have remained "libre" and have a separate version with non free insertions, and call it something else, for example Mibreboot.

[@mariocraft95]

While I love some of the things the free software foundation has done, They are often the worst parts of the FOSS community. Even though they don’t identify themselves as part of the FOSS community. When I first started my Linux journey, I read some of their articles. I started to think that this might not be for me. I quickly learned I was wrong and began to love Linux. A lot of it is about choice. The choice to be able to use Linux on my proprietary Nvidia GPU drivers. My choice to use as many free or proprietary pieces of software as I choose to use. That’s what I like.

[@5init]

12:20 Missed the opportunity to call it GNU/Trademark

[@Omnifarious0]

I was very against the cancellation of RMS. But now I'm questioning his ability to lead the FSF. I think his uncompromising stance is invaluable, and I think he needs an important position within the FSF. But most decisions about day-to-day operations shouldn't pass through him in any way. And I think also, he shouldn't be in charge of selling people on the idea of Free Software. He should just be in charge of defining what is truly free and what isn't.

[@formbi]

he is right, but not very pragmatic

[@paulie-g]

@@formbi We need the zealot extremists to move the Overton window towards fully free software. Stallman has been restricted to ascii pron in emacs on ancient laptops for decades now so I don't have to be, and I thank him for his sacrifice.

[@cotboy]

Wasn't he 'cancelled' because he defended/downplayed Epstein and other rapists by saying it's normal to be attracted to adolescents? Like I feel it is pretty fair to want to distance yourself from someone like that.

[@formbi]

@@paulie-g 100%

[@Omnifarious0]

@@cotboy - No, he defended Marvin Minsky when it was discovered that Epstein had sent one of the girls to seduce Marvin. And RMSes defense was that she would likely have presented herself as an adult and Marvin would've had no way of knowing.

[@pialdas6835]

Tbh I see the point of GNU's mission (I'm still actually confused with that trademark situation: is it GNU Boot now or Libreboot) which is to not include any proprietary binaries because if they did then they might as well contribute to coreboot instead. But the way GNU went after that developer was just terrible. This is not how people in the FOSS community should act smh. Seriously a cease and desist?! First RedHat, now this. Also, you mentioned how FSF is not "libre" with some of their stuff so I gotta read up on that.

[@Fractal_32]

I agree GNU should have reached out. I can honestly understand GNU’s point of view though out this situation and I think it’s being a little over dramatic and possibly a little biased in your coverage of the event. Have you reached out to both parties to obtain the the real story? Maybe there is more complications than the single source is letting on about.

[@ShadowPhex]

Now that I know libreboot prioritises function AND freedom, I am interested in giving it a try!

[@Scoopta]

My philosophy towards proprietary software is I don't use it...unless it's firmware. I have not figured out how to win the FOSS firmware fight, and so I just don't worry about firmware as I don't see a way to actually run all FOSS firmware. I have a CPU that needs microcode, a motherboard that needs a proprietary UEFI, a graphics card(AMD) that while has fully FOSS drivers requires proprietary firmware on the card itself. I do make exceptions for games but only if it's running in a container/sandbox to isolate it from my actual system. No proprietary software(ignoring firmware) has access to any of the data I care about. Some people think that's a dumb way to handle it but it works for me.

[@MH_VOID]

What I currently do is quite similar. The main differences are that I continue to use some proprietary software that I've been using for years - though heavily sandboxed, and I always try to use them less - and I'll use proprietary software if it's necessary to live (work requirement, school forcing me to use z..m (though obviously I use the browser version), checking out at a grocery store's credit card machine, et cetera). It's the most pragmatically ethical way to realistically go about this right now for me. My main video game is also now a FOSS one (OpenArena), and I'm completely done with MS w......s now, personally and hopefully soon professionally as well.

[@Scoopta]

@@MH_VOID I do run a windows 10 VM on my work provided laptop(I'm in charge of IT so they let me pretty much do what I want with it) but the VM is running under qemu/KVM and only for work stuff so falls under that sandboxing thing. Outside of that personally for me it's just games. I could never quite get into any of the FOSS games. Most everything I play is proprietary unfortunately. Tbh I think the most fun I've ever had in a FOSS game was veloren, IMO that's the best FOSS game out rn.

[@MH_VOID]

​@@Scoopta BTW you're not the same Scoopta who wrote glpaper, are you? If so, thank you - I've been using (a lightly patched version of) it for the past year or so! That's acceptable IMO. If work really needs me to use proprietary stuff on their property, fine, I'll do it without overly protesting (by contrast, if it's on my own machine, it'd have to be utterly sandboxed, and I'd still protest heavily unless I really really needed the job. And I'd rather get fired than use unsandboxed proprietary source-unavailable software on my own machine). Good that you can at least get away with running it in a VM rather than on bare metal. Yeah, the FOSS games unfortunately tend to be inferior to the proprietary ones. About the closest I've seen to great ethical video games are Minecraft and Terraria (true 10/10s, both of which I have over 1000 hours in over the past decade), which while not free or open source, have both been decompiled by the community and that decompilation is officially approved of, (and in case of Minecraft, they now distribute the proper symbol names for the decompiled binaries so you could go as far as saying as the decompilation is officially supported,) but that's still far from truly ethical unfortunately. OpenArena is actually nearly ethical but I've only recently gotten into it and I'm not sure how it'll stand the test of time for me, and I don't think it's good enough to be a game I can onetrick in the long term, as opposed to e.g. MH4U in Citra, which I've been playing a lot of the past few months (and had 2,300 hours of on the actual hardware). Currently I'd give the game itself probably like an 8/10, though that's partially boosted by my actually being to talk freely in chat, which is something generally shared to some extent due to inherent decentralization potential of ethical games. Just really hard to beat the concentrated manpower (especially in all the artists, sound designers, etc.) of a big dollar commercial game. Are there really any FOSS games out there with high quality graphics and audio that aren't made from a commercial game?? Even taking your example of veloren, the graphics are quite simple. Pretty much every FOSS video game I've seen with even somewhat decent graphics are like 20 years old (so have had a lot of time to try to match an individual ~3 years of development modern game's), their graphics on highest quality are only really comparable to the average mainstream game's graphics on low quality, and they're still usually made from a commercial game. I just hope that AI could actually rectify that soon, with AI-created assets and help with code - though, that probably entails buying and using highly proprietary nvidia hardware and software, so still pretty awful (and of course those AAA game companies will have totally next-level graphics and GPU farms and whatnot but I'd be content with getting near what we have now commercially, in FOSS games). Ahhh it never ends... I hope in a century the world's evolved to the point where ethicality can flourish on its own. I've heard good things about veloren (especially as I'm an avid Rust user), but the deplorable code of conduct it has turns me away from really looking into it much...

[@Scoopta]

@@MH_VOID lol, I am the same Scoopta. Don't find too many people using this username tbh. I've found a few other people with it in the wild but it's rare, probably the only one with it in the Linux/wayland ecosystem. What are the patches? If they're interesting I'd be willing to take them upstream. Also I'm actually surprised glpaper is what you know me from...for most people it's wofi or wlrobs, glpaper was kinda a random fun thing I made(I don't even use it anymore) and am surprised people in the wild use it. Yeah, exactly. I need the VM for work and they paid for the machine. The fact that I'm able to run 100% FOSS code on the machine itself and the only proprietary code is inside the windows 10 VM which is running on a FOSS hypervisor is really the best I could possibly ask for outside of no proprietary software at all. The VM only has company data on it anyway, I don't trust windows as far as I can throw it with any of my personal data given all the creepy windows 10 telemetry. Minecraft is actually one of my all time favorite games and I love how relatively open it is given the fact that it's not a truly open game. I'm not sure there's a game I know inside out better than MC, especially as a java developer. I haven't tried OpenArena although of that style of game(FOSS ports of prop games) I have played OpenMW...I really freaking hope they get skyrim running on it, there was some effort towards that. You are right though, FOSS games usually don't look nearly as amazing, veloren can get away it by being a voxel game but there aren't many true 3D FOSS games that have anywhere near the fidelity of AAA. I feel like godot lends itself to providing a good FOSS engine with good graphics potential but that doesn't fix the asset creation portion of the problem. Going to your comment about nvidia and AI apparently AI through rocm on radeon instinct GPUs is actually becoming a thing. Level 1 techs did a video on running stable diffusion with rocm and it actually worked despite the project only officially supporting cuda. Was quite cool and makes me hopeful that AMD has a shot in hell of finally getting somewhere in the GPGPU space with FOSS drivers. If so fully FOSS AI might be a thing!

[@DavidZetaKrone]

I didn't think it was possible to lose any more respect for the GNU people. I'm disappointed I was wrong.

[@13thravenpurple94]

Great video Thank you

[@FlameForgedSoul]

Libre-esque Boot? Libre-ish Boot? Maybe all that's needed is a slight rebrand? Its so amusing that people so opposed to certain ideologies ruining FOSS are themselves ruining FOSS... because of ideology.

[@JodyBruchon]

Big fish in little muddy ponds.

[@PhilfreezeCH]

Its not like you even really know if the hardware is actually running only your code in the first place. In fact I know for certain that sometimes hardware people (like me) just decide to not run your code in some situations (especially bootloader or when we have to fix hardware mistakes without anyone really noticing).

[@vintprox]

People are just going too far with hostile fork culture, when there are more productive ways to collaborate. GNU sending cease & desist to Libreboot is so antithetical to their cause and only digging grave deeper for Free Software Foundation.

[@JacobP81]

So even if GNU's GNU boot WAS based on the newest LibraBoot it would still not work? Because a BIOS requires proprietary blobs to function. Am I getting that right?

[@BrodieRobertson]

It would work for certain older devices, but a lot of devices don't have free software firmware replacements

[@marcogenovesi8570]

yes most stuff made in the last 20-15 years would not work because lack of blobs

[@Shadepariah]

In the FSF, the perfect is the enemy of the good

[@ottolehikoinen6193]

Am I a linux guy because i lolled at the headline.

[@autohmae]

11:30 you have to wonder if Phoronix/Michael didn't make the mistake if they would have went the legal route ? Having said that, I guess GNU is a registered trademark, they legally have an obligation to protect it. Libreboot probably does not have a trademark and GNU doesn't have a trademark for Libre is my guess.

[@setoman1]

I like how you glossed over the fact that Libreboot is not libre.

[@IgnoreMyChan]

Hey, I just noticed your picture-in-picture view of your camera is flipped.

[@BrodieRobertson]

It's so I'm looking towards the content

[@vaisakh_km]

GNU: 😭 "Teacher... she is talking my pencil..."

[@cameronmoore136]

Foss newbie, here. I very well may be ignorant, don't yell at me (but your input is still welcome). But isn't proprietary blobs a core boot thing? If coreboot does its best to be open source but has proprietary blobs in it for usability sake, then how is Libreboot different than Coreboot? I thought Libreboot's whole thing WAS "Libre" and a firm stance on open-source code? I'm a little disappointed to be honest. But again, I'm not knowledgeable enough to state anything definitively, maybe there's no way around it, idk.

[@marcogenovesi8570]

Libreboot started as a "coreboot without blobs" but they eventually realized that it's completely pointless as that means no hardware works without blobs (it's not a "usability" it's a "can actually init the CPU/board or not")

[@cameronmoore136]

​@@marcogenovesi8570Okay but what is it doing differently than coreboot if it, too, is using proprietary blobs?

[@marcogenovesi8570]

@@cameronmoore136 yeah that's a good question

[@elzabethtatcher9570]

Amazing. Just amazing.

[@frien_d]

That doesn't look like a legal threat. Is the treasurer that signed it a lawyer? It's not worded like a legal threat. More of another stab. An uninformed stab by someone who apparently didn't knew that GNU tried to steal the name first.

[@Arfonfree]

I want to propose a new law of sociology: The intelligence factor of any interaction is defined by the lowest intelligence exhibited by any participant.

[@SWRDMaster]

This really sounds like an antitrust issue. The manufacturers have linked a product, hardware, to a second product, proprietary software driver. This is a BIG no no.

[@trueriver1950]

1:28 I have never understood the FSF attitude on this one. Why is it OK to have hardware that comes with baked in firmware, when if loadable at startup that firmware would be banned? Both firmwares are opaque to the user in terms of auditing, functionality, back doors, and forking. I've never seen a plausible defence of the FSF position on this, which is disappointing as in general I like their attitude.

[@davidioanhedges]

You can't trademark the word Libre ... it doesn't mean what GNU thinks it means, and they don't own it, but they try and force anyone who does use it to comply with their definition ... and the result if often this kind of mess

[@Gregorius421]

This is hilarious. Is this an episode of The Big Bang Theory?

[@brettfo]

if you have a trademark, you are required to proactively defend it because failing to do so will result in the loss of the trademark. Libreboot, if it has a trademark, would be required to do the same. Patents and copyright, on the other hand, have no obligation to enforce. Tbh, everybody comes off as childish, but the enforcing trademarks is essential to the organizations.

[@husanaaulia4717]

GNU was correct about the "libre" but it's become funny after the "joke" naming problem

[@indigomizumi]

I'm all for free software in principle but I could never truly free myself from proprietary software. In general I see it as a freedom of choice.

[@replikvltyoutube3727]

They still have the balls to do it

[@ps5hasnogames55]

Leah does have balls indeed

[@GigantTech]

New video nice

[@Sitwayen]

Did she at least try to contact the news editor to try and clarify things or did she just accept the credit for making gnuboot?

[@total_epicness6776]

when a copyleft organization turns copyright

[@mathgeniuszach]

I don't see an issue with using binary blobs in libreboot if their existance is clearly visible to the user. A simple popup notice that shows up once is good enough. I prefer a compromise over exclusively using proprietary software. Does it mean I want a compromise? No! When a compromise is the only option though, it's better than the proprietary default.

[@Shonicheck]

The sad part is that there is no conflict of interests here, and the only reason conflict even arose is that there were a few antisocial dudes in gnu projects that did moronic things. In fact i even agree with them to some degree, in a sense that the renaming was in fact really needed since they started using non-free blobs. If i remember correctly libreboot was even started as a project that got rid of proprietary parts in coreboot, so it makes sense for a rename to take place ones the project starts to contrafict its own name and purpose(kinda)

[@frien_d]

I keep reading it as Lib Reboot.

[@t0m5k1]

been using linux since sarge and I've come to realise that this behaviour is quite normal for gnu.

[@Koffiato]

FSF/GNU moment. Not surprised, honestly not even disappointed at this point. These productions are not only unhelpful, but actively harmful. Kind of incredible really.

[@KryptLynx]

Ok, in spirit of one drama subreddit: everyone is an asshole in there

[@embertillhawk8160]

Tbh reminds me of modded minecraft development. There's some hilariously pathetic stories in there if you know where to dog. I'd suggest looking into the Landmaster controversy first, cuz that's got the biggest ratio of size-to-recency. Neoforge might wind up a bigger one but we'll have to see how much mud actually gets flung for that.

[@REAL-UNKNOWN-SHINOBI]

If I could tell the Devs behind Libreboot one thing, it's this. Just stop trying to help them. They have repeatedly time and time again ignored your help, and you are just talking into a brick wall at this point.

[@awwastor]

11:40 you are allowed to use someone's trademark though, the strongest factor on whether something qualifies a trademark infringement is whether it is likely to confuse consumers. Clearly stating that this is not the actual GNU Boot seems to make it quite unlikely. Additionally the whole letter seems kinda bullshit as trademarks outside of commerce are kinda dubious.

[@tambuchalinux]

Because of this video, GNU-Boot will now resonate in my mind as Cry-babies' Boot.

[@chadwickemcphearson]

BRILL GRATES owns it all. Praise prophet Terry, he knew you'd have no compiler and no code eventually. They want your OS to boot from the cloud!

[@6iaZkMagW7EFs]

It's weird how people attack those 99.9% the same as then due to a 0.1% difference. They're copying her code yet they're sending her a cease-and-desist? Talk about rude and ungreatful.

[@realsifocopypaste]

floss (free libre open source software) should not including non-floss / proprietary software :)

[@wethermon]

Stares at screen....hum...first time? It's the usual drama.

[@e8root]

Just by how their site looked I could tell they are hostile jerks

[@rainsgooi9281]

“Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I'm not sure about the universe.” ― Albert Einstein

[@GlebyGlobster]

what annoys me about GNU is that they believe that they are the end all be all for deciding what and what isn't free. imho, somebody should make a suite of software that can replace GNU software so I don't have to hear the GNU/Linux bullshit for the millionth time.

[@anon_y_mousse]

All I can say is what I've been saying for years, GNU holds us back. Are you starting to believe it?