LibreBoot & GNU Boot Drama Is Deeper Than Expected

[@CalcProgrammer1]

I personally believe that loading firmware to the hardware at boot time is MORE free than having those blobs burned into ROM inside the hardware. At least with loadable firmware, there is a nonzero chance that an open source firmware could eventually be developed to replace the proprietary one. With the burned-in ROM, it's there forever.

[@brainndamage]

Then someone could create a microcode specially for targeting one person based on the exact software he uses based on their research. If that person blindly trusts all new microcode, he'll install the backdoored version without even knowing. The question whether to update proprietary microcode or not is very hard to answer . On one hand, absolutely, bugfixes and vulnerability patches. On the other hand, do you trust them to not put in new backdoors when they patch the old ones? It closes the old door to their enemies and opens a new door just to them (until the enemy discovers it).

[@EraYaN]

@@brainndamagebut you are also using their hardware and god knows how many bugs and unpatchable “features” that has, so it’s all a moot point anyway. It just doesn’t matter and it’s weird semantics by the FSF…

[@arnabbiswasalsodeep]

​@@brainndamage "targeting one person... based on their research" & "If that person blindly trusts" Tell me, will that kind of person even be the target demographic? how much time & effort are they going to spend to go over each & every line of the codebase, understand everything about it & then come to conclusion about it's security? Tell me, do you do it? can u explain to me the whole of linux kernel & it's operation, let alone it's single filesystem tree? Or even part of the gnuboot or libreboot?

[@brainndamage]

@@arnabbiswasalsodeep you underestimate the budget of nation state level agencies. It's not just one person targeting one person, it's a team of people who may even be paid full time salaries, while you can only work on your security in your free time because it doesn't pay the bills. They are absolutely known to go after individuals, for just one example Snowden.

[@Ether_Void]

@@brainndamage Well whether we trust them or not, we know there is a vulnerability or bug in the old version that is now widely known and exploitable by anyone. At least in my opinion that beats future unknown issues. It those are exploited actively by some agency there is nothing stopping them from just using the old already known issue. The only fully free solution would be to know every detail of the hardware itself. Since that is impossible on modern x86 right now we have to at least acknowledge that many users don't care about new backdoors when the last one is not just left open but is also known and accessible to basically everyone.

[@StuckDuck]

8:29 Brodie: "...the free software people who never wanna touch a single" Me: "Blade of grass?" Brodie: "...binary blob" Oh yeah that makes more sense

[@ponocni1]

These two are interchangeable.

[@videogamesbecool]

@@ponocni1 I can't read the grass's DNA source code without de-compiling its instructions

[@fcolecumberri]

Each time I see a GNU drama, I wonder if it needed to be a drama in the first place. At this point I think GNU is more dramatic than what it should be, and they should learn how to deescalate stuff.

[@lauraprates8764]

GNU and the FSF became radicals, they maybe have a good goal, but the way to achieve it is definitely wrong, and in this way they became something they promise to destroy

[@Fractal_32]

Personally I think people over blow the situation without getting all the information about what’s going on. (This only benefits people who report on the topic since they are paid for clicks so not telling the whole story can make them more money since drama sells.)

[@mina86]

There are multitude GNU projects which cause very little drama and have been around for decades. You see a lot of GNU drama because there’s a lot of GNU projects around. Much smaller projects had drama as well.

[@keit99]

We're all just characters in some dystopian future drama😂

[@banu6301]

> at this point As if they didn't do this shit ever since the 90s

[@treayed]

Realistically speaking, THIS is why this entire space of computing will remain niche. Before or at the same time of origination of the FSF there needed to be a Free Hardware Foundation. How could ANYONE committed to truly free and open computing not see that… Ah well, time and effort are better spent expressing freedom by doing the same things with slight shades of difference while the actual progress stays stagnant.

[@liquidsnake6879]

You need hardware geeks who care, the FSF does what it can, it provides RYF certification to companies like Technoethical and points its users towards them and others, there's just not enough of them and not enough at scale capable of building all hardware needed to operate a computer. But there ARE people trying to tackle the hardware problem. The biggest problem is that there's just not enough of them and there's no real realistic effort to really build something open-source, everyone is just reverse-engineering old parts removing the blobs and replacing with the open alternatives Who's gonna build a whole damn open-source CPU? Even the entire industrial might of China is struggling to create one let alone random geeks on the internet.

[@PanosPitsi]

Don’t be ridiculous how your cpu performs binary multiplication is totally irrelevant I get windows can spy on you to sell ads but the intel microcode? Seriously? And you are on KZbin of all places with a personal account. Privacy has its place but come on this schizophrenic behavior only serves to make the opensource movement look like a bunch of maniacs that live in mountains. Guess what there’s also satellites that spy on us what are you gonna do live in the sewer? My point is windows and Microsoft excel etc can be replaced by oss alternatives but trying to make an open source cpu microcode patch is moronic.

[@2uxzh01k]

@@liquidsnake6879openRISC RISC-V Just stop using Intel amd and arm

[@svaira]

@@liquidsnake6879Well, Risc V exists. Its not currently an X86 competitor in terms of speed / performance or efficency, but it can boot an OS

[@Mallchad]

GNU took on a project too big for them and have been flopping around ever since... Their cause is a noble one, to keep all software fully freedom respecting forever. But they need way, *way* more help to make that even slightly a reality. Arguably they've done well so far with even microsoft leaving large projects completely open. And also arguably they got lucky with their initial GNU coreutils effort being so complete so early they it got adopted as pseudo-default. Who knows what would've happened otherwise.

[@Jaabaa_Prime]

FSF/GNU must surely realise that, as you pointed out, updateable firmware, i.e. binary blobs from the manufacturer is better than baked in and possibly buggy ROM based firmware. Sure, it would be great if the HW manufacturers would release the source for their binaries but that is where a lot of their IP is.

[@yellingintothewind]

The fundamental problem with the FSF position is that, should the manufacturer (or some other party) later release free firmware, users of FSF-approved hardware will be unable to _use_ that free firmware. People side-loading non-free firmware currently, can switch to free (or at least audited) firmware when and if such becomes available.

[@---..]

I agree. Additionally, those binary blobs, even if the source was released, likely can't be compiled with any publicly available tool-chain, so for them to be useful it would also require opening up a ton of private firmware tool-chains and massively complicating the build process of the opensource project to actually be able to compile the blobs (and likely reduce the portability of the build process). I've love to see it, but its not going to happen any time soon if ever.

[@yellingintothewind]

@@---.. Happens all the time. Mostly with very simple things (TFT screens are about the most complex that someone clean room implements). Companies do also release their source code, but that doesn't automatically mean third parties can build it. It is still useful for verifying it does what it should. If the firmware on your device is baked in and unreadable, you can't even do that much.

[@keit99]

​@@yellingintothewindsomehow the FSF is missing the mark in this particular issue.

[@BrodieRobertson]

The argument I've often seen people make is the FSF is focused on software, and hardware is outside of there focus

[@Fenrasulfr]

Asking for good interpersonal skills with open source developers, is asking a whole lot.

[@Peepofangirl]

A normal day in the Linux world is all I ask for.

[@murzilkastepanowich5818]

you aint getting one any time soon vim dev died 3 days ago

[@csteelecrs]

for the Linux world this is a normal day.

[@vaisakh_km]

​@@murzilkastepanowich5818wait, bram died?

[@matthiaslangbart9841]

@@vaisakh_km Yes. On Aug 3rd at the age of 62. Light a candle for him.

[@vaisakh_km]

@@matthiaslangbart9841 😔🙏

[@PanosPitsi]

Petition to name gnu boot gnoot

[@emretasdemir8028]

"goot" is better

[@coffecrazy]

I’m signing

[@DavidZetaKrone]

Sometimes I wonder if all of the Open Source ecosystem is run by angry toddlers. It feels like that sometimes.

[@0015v]

but hey, average multibillion corporations selling you non-free closed source proprietary stuff wih tons of DRM, subscription here and there and planned obsolence are the greater good

[@DavidZetaKrone]

@@0015vThe failures of one group don't make any impact on another. That the open source community has issues has nothing to do with how closed source/companies handle things; the fact that this is my house means I'm required to attempt to clean it up when it's dirty -- that means *acknowledging* it's dirty in the first place.

[@JoshDoingLinux]

This whole situation is super dumb. Just be there for each other. Subterfuge is the antithesis of free software imo.

[@BrodieRobertson]

What if that subterfuge is free software?

[@realGBx64]

@@BrodieRobertsonthe subterfuge is the friends we made in the meantime.

[@BrodieRobertson]

@@realGBx64 true though

[@Omio9999]

Non-sequitur - subterfuge is a behaviour born from an act, not an inherent quality. Given that the roots can more-or-less be tracked to trying to "escape" the binds of licensing restrictions, the philosophical distinction between LibreBoot and GNU Boot is *technically relevant.* Granted, in a modernized age where hardware has enough checks in place on its own, the philosophy of GNU Boot is sadly going to perish, since hardware developers are forced into black-box tactics.

[@Thanatos2996]

Remember where the subterfuge started. The GNU boot guys tried to poach devs from libreboot and tried to steal the name libreboot. They the. responded to her good faith offer of a better starting point for their fork with threats of legal action. I can’t blame her for saying “screw you and the horse you rode in on” to them with nonGeNUine Boot at this point.

[@Spartan322]

The FSF would've won the war against proprietary code by now if they'd just been reasonable and approach people in an attempt to give them full choice and work as best as is reasonably possible to eliminate proprietary code. They honestly shoot FOSS in the foot the most out of any members of it.

[@ducksies]

I have to side with the FSF. For one reason and one reason alone. They NEVER, *NEVER* compromise on their morals. Yes, it would be more convenient if they did so. Yes, it could possibly increase short-term adoption if they did so. But if we care about the long-term survival of free software, "extremist", uncompromising viewpoints are absolutely vital.

[@treayed]

Sorry, that’s not accurate. They are compromising with the way they exclude rom code on hardware. They purport to have a black and white stance, but rom code is clearly in the grey. And once you have a grey area dispute, it’s futile to still insist the line you set is THE correct line.

[@arnabbiswasalsodeep]

What you are saying as "morals" is your misinterpretation, because they NEVER compromise on their interpretation, not morals. Their interpretation may have flaws for some, boon for others but you sure are mis-interpreting

[@DanielRumbacher]

@@treayed rom code is not in the grey. rom code is considered insecure when you dont know what it does or when you cant read the sourcecode. the goal is total freedom and transparency everywhere. to the tiniest rom/microcode. thats why ducksies is right. we need a side which never compromises. in the future the fsf will become more important because all the big companies will make the web more and more corporate. pc will become more and more unfree. so there needs to be a side which makes no compromises. it does not mean that everyone has to use this free software but it should be there if someone wants to use it.

[@olnnn]

These projects are interesting and all from a technical perspective but they seem so extremely niche and difficult to install and use in practice so it seems like a rather pointless fight.

[@StuckDuck]

agree

[@caleblagrange7164]

I would consider myself to be one of Leah's friends; so there's something important to note here. Leah seems really mean, but that's just Leah's style. Leah has sent me many messages which could be interpreted as an attack. The reality is that Leah is actually *that* intelligent. Just look at its commit history. Leah is always right, and that makes Leah's statements sound condescending. It's not intended to make anyone upset.

[@AstoundingAmelia]

It seems like she's the kind of person who is like Linus torvalds, from the commits I have seen it seems like she really likes to just get to the point and doesn't like dealing with wishy washy crap

[@GRBtutorials]

Is the trademark really relevant when it comes to the ethical justification, though? Just because they didn’t pay a few hundred for a trademark doesn’t mean their project is less worthy of the name than if they paid. Even if they can legally use the name, that doesn’t mean it’s OK.

[@MatthewWilliamsX]

Bangin, cat jammin, rm root, yolo outro. Epic start to a Sunday morning.

[@autohmae]

9:59 Most of the project is about hardware specific code (similar to Linux kernel drivers). Even if you are months behind on the parent project, if you just want to support certain hardware, you might already have the latest code from the parent project. Or only 1 or 2 commits behind.

[@1qwerasdzxcvfrtgb]

Brodie having to come to terms with his popularity in the community is honestly the funniest thing to me

[@chrispro2766]

Great video as always!

[@phylwx]

While the actual content of the discussion MIGHT just be dumb, it is quite interesting and productive how people are responding with "We need an FHF in addition to the FSF". This is the way.

[@BrodieRobertson]

H? Edit: I'm dumb I assume you mean hardware

[@phylwx]

@@BrodieRobertson Yes! A free hardware foundation just makes sense as a solution to the more general problem, doesn't it?

[@paxdriver]

Trademark law and copyright is further complicated by first use too. If it was published and slightly known the continued use after first use constitute an implied trademark from the date its published so long as it never went stale

[@r2db]

2:32 There is still a "common law trademark" even if no paperwork has been filed. If the software has been distributed to more than two US states, which is virtually guaranteed, then there is some trademark protection available throughout the US. The registration of a trademark provides additional rights above and beyond common law rights, such as a presumption that the trademark is valid.

[@PenguinRevolution]

The Free Software Community has never been good at communication with one another, which needs to improve. But this could have been solved with good communication and less legal notices.

[@_sneer_]

This drama looks like legal battles between massive corporations. Come on, people, have some sense. Leah should take a chill pill and drop "Libre" from Libreboot if it is not libre.

[@_sneer_]

@@giusdbg I don’t agree. Libre means libre.

[@adjbutler]

Sounds like you just need, Genuine Libreboot and Libreboot HardCore. That way both get their cake and eat it too. One wants to be as easy to use for the most amount of people possible, the other wants to be so hardened down that even the most powerful people on the planet cannot have any chance of a backdoor into it. These goals are polar opposites to each other, one will naturally be more attractive to more people but the other will be very attractive to someone like Edward S or Julian A. It sounds like if these two projects worked together it would be more enjoyable for everyone involved. Just stop saying your "better" than the other when you have completely different mission goals in mind.

[@schwingedeshaehers]

The hard version is backdoorable As every backdoor in the first version of the microcode works, as it isn't patched

[@obake6290]

I was a lot more sympathetic to Leah's side in the previous video compared to this one. Still a bit - I mean, the FSF/GNU people still started it by trying the hostile takeover on the name. And honestly I'm just biased against them by default since I don't like them or the extreme they stand for. But when Leah comes out and says things like "it's designed to make GNU look as bad as possible" it doesn't make her look much better. Getting that sourcehut taken down is not unreasonable, but the was she phrased it sounded less like "protecting the project name" and more like calling in personal favors to dunk on somebody else.

[@vicca4671]

Both sides have agreeable points: it's good to have both a "freer-than-market but easier to setup option (Libreboot)" and a "100% free, zero blobs, might be harder to use option (GNU Boot). But that hate boner Leah apparently has towards wanting GNU to look bad (7:45), as well as asking a known FSF critic to remove their repo ("I asked him to do that but didn't expect him to do as I said" is a terrible excuse), makes it harder to defend her actions. IMO, in the best case they'd go as two separate projects that can get patches from each other while doing their own thing.

[@wChris_]

Leah should probably get the libreboot trademark and that rather quickly as it could be a liability if someone else steals your name and becomes more popular than your project and you basically become forgotten.

[@BrodieRobertson]

Yeah I don't know why she doesn't have it but it's also really difficult for someone to retroactively steal it

[@NiceMicroTV]

isn't it the case that just because a trademark is not officially registered with the trademark office, if it was used consistently and works as a trade mark, can be still protected? Not a lawyer, so not sure.

[@angeldude101]

There's also matter of the concept of trademarks themselves. I can completely understand why a project with "libre" in the name would not want to legally restrict access to that name.

[@absalomdraconis]

​@@NiceMicroTV : Using it before registration is in fact often required, but registration offers more protection. However, trademarks don't always carry across international borders...

[@absalomdraconis]

​@@angeldude101 : Would they still have that stance if Sony got the trademark, and used it for a rootkit that permanently alters microcode?

[@yuvalne]

this all could have been avoided had GNU chosen to not try and steal the name libreboot.

[@orbatos]

You have the right take on this. The entire premise of an "audit" just is *not* going to happen however much we might want it to, and their premise is really just an excuse to have more control over a branch of the project. Ultimately this comes down to petty bs by people with a terrible track record of both poor communication and abuse of management systems to get their way. I hate to put it this way, but should we really be trusting them at all?

[@Atius]

I'm 84 and this is deep.....

[@janglestick]

6:29 just a note, you said 'unreliable' , the quote is 'reliable' ... 6:54 intel / Thinkpad microcode insecurity 7:06 FSF approved vs not 7:40 nonGeNUine boot / leah / coreboot libreboot still better for whistleblowers (just if theyre using the Windows ME ?)

[@elzabethtatcher9570]

Leah saying "i'm burning it down" and "in my new world" sounds just a touch down less insane that FSF''s "libre" definition. But her software sounds much more realistic.

[@TopHatProductions115]

I need to switch to all IBM Power and RISC-V hardware at this point. Way easier to audit an ecosystem that's not based on ARM or x86, especially if it runs open source firmware and Linux.

[@schemage2210]

"NOOOOOOOOOOOO.......... They sent me an "email", my day is ruined"!!!!!!!

[@omegaroguelp]

I am in pain with the fsf in terms of hardware, because the hardware wont be free anyways until the hardware sources are open, Because otherwise you dont know what it actually does

[@punkrockllama]

Off topic but I enjoy that auto subtitles put "Guh-new" as canoe.

[@7rich79]

This comment will now spawn a new distro called Canoe Linux.

[@err0rheart932]

I never expected the GNU community to have so much tea.

[@muellerhans]

Neox really came out better after this one while Leah lost some credibility imo.

[@AschKris]

I saw it the other way around lol

[@Fractal_32]

This is why I was saying Brody should research the situation more before reporting on it since he mainly covered one side on the original video, it would have been better if Brody reached out to the other side and put the picture together. (At least from what I’ve seen he doesn’t like the FSF/GNU so I can see why he wouldn’t want to hear their side.)

[@_sneer_]

Yeah, she came out very childish.

[@BrodieRobertson]

I feel like Neox is targeting a world that doesn't exist whereas Leah is aiming to bring the advantages of free software to as many people as possible

[@_sneer_]

@@BrodieRobertson > Leah is aiming to bring the advantages of free software to as many people as possible But she is not, she is sitting on the fence. Usually it hurts after a while.

[@knghtbrd]

I can see how software in ROM is different than blobs that replace update software in ROM for highly secure platforms … I just don't see how you can realistically defend against it without using highly secure airgapped systems that ideally predate your existence or that of the threat actor you're trying to defend against. Unless you want to go back to using TTL CPUs (or CMOS reconstructions thereof?) where you know every gate involved and your team designed every byte of software running on them.

[@aesculetum]

I suspect that discussion is better not being discussed, because it is already into the realms of politics and ignoring it will invite the hatred of all sides.

[@SnowyRVulpix]

I absolutely hate the FSF's definition of freedom. Freedom of choice includes the ability to use closed source software.

[@AstoundingAmelia]

I absolutely agree, honestly I think it's one of the reasons that held wine back for so long before people like Valve and lutris and bottles got involved, (The reason I bring up bottles is because of their most recent controversy) these projects that actually understood that freedom sometimes means you have to let people do whatever

[@EwanMarshall]

So Leah is wong on trademark, but this is trademark law, a trademark need not be registered, it does become much easier to defend if it is though. A common law trademark is a thing, this is where you are just trading under a given name and people know it by that name. So for bootloaders libreboot is a trademark of the developers behind libreboot.

Personally i think the most freedom is archived by bringing more users into FOSS. While I know that some users need completely free firmware I think that goal is unrealistic unless software vendors change themselves. I think projects such as fwupdmgr/lvfs are the best ways to get secure firmware with the help of vendors at the current state. GNU is another topic.. the whole idiocrazy in the way they want spread foss but than don't work on the realism to implement their goals is beyond me. For example I would like that more companies would adopt GPL-3.0 however there has been very few instances where there was actual help to accept/validate the license legally. The discrepancy between ideology and reality that the FSF has hurts the FOSS community, especially that side that is pro copyleft. Companies push for non-copy left projects such as clang and llvm after the GNU project lost meaning after the GPL-3.0 issue. A person that would be a better leader and galleon figure than RMS wouldn't hurt either. I don't have anything against RMS but he doesn't help the cause, he is just there mostly.

[@ukyoize]

fuck companies

[@yesterdaysrose5446]

GNU: "We're watching Breaking Bad season 4, even though its a proprietary video format." LibreBoot: "(Animesque) Heh. I. I have been studying Breaking Bad season 5."

[@Sitwayen]

I fail to see how approaching competent devs that work on a project you want to fork is unethical, specially if there is a possibility of getting paid. And it is not like you cannot contribute to both.

[@GoatzombieBubba]

In 2026 AMD firmware(BIOS) will be FOSS.

[@snap_oversteer]

They've promised that at varying levels of seriousness for over a decade so I'm rather sceptical.

[@rodrigo.55]

the problem is not creating a full free software alternative but how fsf deals with people actually developing usable free alternatives to software. if you actually sit down and think really hard about this, the real problem is the company who has the monopoly of hardware technology releasing this private blobs in the first place. cmon there's no real freedom in capitalism.

[@minigpracing3068]

I'd like a followup on this topic... Are there any CPU or MCU that don't have black box micro code baked into them? RasPi requires a binary blob for some things, not sure about RockChip or RISC-V. So is there any hardware that can be seen as literal freedom in their code? Do we need to step back to 8088 or older? Do we need to code an FPGA in order to make this happen (and would it satisfy the definition)?

[@ukyoize]

There is riso-V out there made from TTL.

[@eDoc2020]

8086 and 8088 contain microcode too. AFAIK the 6502 does not.

[@Dratchev241]

tricky thing with naming is while a trademark isn't issued you can still be protected as it was in use already when x decided to name their same program the same thing. thus can fall to the who used it first. you can see this in Business naming in the states take waffle house for example, the south east based waffle house for years couldn't use the name waffle house in the state of Indiana due to another group having the name in use already thus the south east based waffle house was named waffle and steak in Indiana (that changed when the Indiana based waffle house went out of biz in the early 2000s) another one is Burger King in Illinois I believe, another place used the burger king name long before the burger king everyone knows came along, the end of that was the big burger king couldn't use the name within 50 miles (i believe) of the local burger king. So while having a name trademark helps it isn't always needed.

[@dreastonbikrain1896]

I did not understand the last sentence I guess, what's wrong with sending emails?

[@act.13.41]

If you had to pay for the chip/device, the firmware to run it correctly should be free and available for free use by all. PERIOD There should be no problem with anyone using intel or any other firmware on Debian or any other distro. This shouldn't even be a discussion. If you own the hardware, it's yours.

[@bltzcstrnx]

The problem is, firmware is really close to the hardware. A lot of their hardware IPs are in there. It's like giving your competitor your hardware design.

[@happygofishing]

@@bltzcstrnx intellectual property and copyright are not real.

[@bltzcstrnx]

@@happygofishing I saw literally thousands of copyleft softwares yet almost no truly libre hardware in existence. I meant hardware that people use, not prototypes or ultra niche applications. Maybe because designing and manufacturing hardware have a far higher barrier to entry compared to software. Some manufacturers even avoid patenting their hardware to prevent the slightest of disclosure for their design. If you, or someone you know interested in designing and manufacturing libre hardware that meets current PC standards, please let me know. I would very gladly use them. As far as I know, until now, not even the EFF or the FSF are up to the task.

[@harpskid]

​@@bltzcstrnxthat's an impossible ask anyway. Even with a full team of engineers and funding for chinas government, companies in china cant compete with 10 year old hardware. A FOS hardware endeavor with a small team of devs would struggle to even get to the level of a 486

[@PanosPitsi]

@@happygofishing I’m starting to believe gnu supporters are a bunch of commies who don’t touch grass.

[@p0indexter624]

6:28 you read the last line of text to say "...hardware is unreliable" when it actually reads "reliable" . typo or misspoke?

[@Aoitori365]

I like when he says "however"

[@muammar007]

All those dramas keep my Linux space 'not-so-boring'.

[@adjbutler]

Diplomacy is a good thing when people know its benefits. If you want to mend bridges, start with what you believe the other side hates you for the most, and then say something like, "You probably think I was a real jerk for doing X..." Notice you are not saying sorry. You are making it clear that you understand why the other side doesn't like you. And by saying it out loud you are offering a olive branch that can open the door to real conversation. Just sit down for a few hours and talk to each other, instead of firing missiles at each other through the net.

[@SheWhoExists]

The communication on display here is indeed bad, arguably on all sides, but there are also strong undercurrents of the FSF/GNUs seeming love of picking fights with every open source project under the sun.

[@peterboil4064]

Funny how one person can shovel their drama into other people's life for almost 10 years now. I function better by ignoring these loud people that want to destroy.

[@joshallen128]

The issue is how do you create free hardware? Do you own a chip making plant like Intel/AMD. The software may be free but the hardware isnt.

[@bltzcstrnx]

Free hardware means free design. The actual hardware itself is not free. What is free is the design, with this free firmware is possible.

[@BrodieRobertson]

I'd be happy if we knew exactly what code was running on the CPU

[@JohnWilliams-gy5yc]

Even RISC-V doesn't dictate what you do in your micro-op or hardware architecture. Proprietary microcodes will *_ NEVER_* go away. Even in the middle age, the pope couldn't pretend he rule the world. There were the crusades and there will be conflicts. You have to look compromisation in every angle and then make your decision for the future's sake.

[@bltzcstrnx]

@@xenocrimson I'm pretty sure no country will expose one of their most advanced technologies to another.

[@Skelterbane69]

You know..... What does GNU actually do? I hear alpine isn't GNU, but I don't really know what that means. What would be needed to get rid of the GNU stuff inside a distro? GNU is the "userspace", or something, but that is a very broad term imo.

[@mercuriete]

The difference between Alpine and other distros is they use musl instead of glibc. If you compile a c++ or c program but you link It with glibc, that program doesn't run on Alpine. You need to recompile and link against musl. Musl is a reimplementation of libc but not made by GNU.

[@Skelterbane69]

@@mercuriete So void musl would do the same thing?

[@mercuriete]

@@Skelterbane69 if you void musl and use glibc that is a small part of GNU. Than you have to use gcc as compiler and lots of GNU commands for the console. Almost all distros uses GNU toolchain and core utilities. Search "wikipedia GNU core utilities". TLDR; Linux is the kernel, GNU is almost everything else (in console). Edit: Alpine comes with busybox that is a replacement of all Shell commands.

[@danholli123]

Better communication AND some humility could have prevented this

[@memovilmx6239]

>Only angered 5% of people I'm still wondering how do you calculate the 5% of like 12 or 15 persons that use libreboot. I know a lot of Freedoooooom freakys but none of them are obsessed with freedom to the hardware level

[@rockdem0n]

Without free open source hardware, free open source software is a fool's errand.

[@exciting-burp]

In this case you really shouldn't do what you want. Firmware with vulnerabilities is actually harmful.

[@bunidanoable]

NEEEEERRRDD FIIIIGHTTT !!!!

[@BrodieRobertson]

KZbin gave me a translate button under this

[@fuseteam]

Speaking of redhat: jon "maddog" hal has something to say about that :D

[@zeyadkenawi8268]

Is this free for freedom?

[@fuseteam]

Oh hey, the redhat saga ended

[@FengLengshun]

3:50 Lutris-Wine be like: 👀

[@realsifocopypaste]

gnu = not contain any nonfloss :) it is only contain floss (free libre open source software) ;)

[@replikvltyoutube3727]

They still have the balls to do it

[@steini19o4]

Sorry, but I really cannot agree with you on those videos. 1. The initial goal of the people behind GNU boot was to reverse the direction LibreBoot was taking. Only after being denied did they fork into their own project. 2. The term "libre" was specifically borrowed into the English language from other Latin languages by RMS to remove the ambiguity of "free". The GNU project and the FSF have been very specific that software you cannot review, change or extend can be "free" but not "libre". 3. By becoming software with code components that are not "libre", "LibreBoot" stops being "libre" software and its name is misleading. 4. A project is libre when it itself is libre. It does not matter if it depends on non-libre components outside of the project. If for example libre firmware for common x86 CPUs would become available, either through regulation or sudden unexpected goodwill oi the manufacturers, it would be the very current "LibreBoot" which would add non-libre components to an otherwise libre system. 5. The maintainers of GNU Boot established their own "LibreBoot" from a code base which they thought of as auditable. This code base is months behind its origin project. Calling it "ancient" when the difference in the age of the code bases of these two projects is in the same ballpark as major CPU release cycles and many of this world's software systems are decades, sometimes even up to half a century, old is misleading at best. 6. When the team behind GNU Boot called its project the non trademarked name "LibreBoot" to counter the misleading use of the term "libre", project representatives of the original "libreBoot" project took underhanded actions to damage the new projects efforts. Furthermore the new project was publicly denounced. 7. These actions were justified by trying to prevent a naming conflict which wouldn't favor the original project. In response to the stated interests of the original project the new project's maintainers voluntarily launched yet another new project named "GNU Boot" and have made it abundantly clear that none of the projects called "LibreBoot" are associated with the GNU Boot project. 8. After the GNU Boot project had itself distanced from any LibreBoot project the original LibreBoot project launched a new project named "GNU Boot" themselves, not only in clear violation of the trademark holder's rights, but also after just having settled a previous naming dispute against the very same project team, having lead to the latter project voluntarily abandoning it and creating a new project under the different name which is now again in conflict. 9. This action was justified by the LibreBoot project by claiming that this was done as a contribution to the new project. Yet it remained unclear why the contribution made the creation of a naming conflict and trademark violation necessary. Furthermore the contribution to the GNU Boot project named GNU Boot was sufficiently indistinguishable from the project itself that there are documented cases of the contribution having been mistaken for the actual project. 10. A holder of a right MUST assert that right. The trademark holder of the GNU trademark is legally obligated to assert his right to those in potential violation of it in a legally unambiguous way in a timely manner.

[@BrodieRobertson]

1. Not in disagreement 2. Not in disagreement (maybe libre should have been in the org name) 3. It's only misleading if you assume the name implies it's entirely free software and not primarily, Leah's stance is that's ok. The FSF is that it's not 4. If that happened Libreboot would shift what it's distributing, also you can remove the blobs if you don't want them 5. Just because there are older things doesn't mean GNU Boot isn't also old, it's a matter of time scale. Over the past year a lot of work has been done to improve Libreboot, in terms of this project it is ancient. 6. I don't want to encourage people that disagree with a name to start squatting on that name and try to steal it from another developer. Why can't Microsoft come along and say we don't agree with how the Linux kernel is being developed so this is ours now, I don't want to live in that world and you don't either. Anyone who tries to steal a name like that should be mocked for doing so. 7. If you fork the same project twice and the only difference is the name it doesn't feel like the projects are unrelated even if you say so. 8. To be more specific it was just Leah that launched it 9. I agree that that Leah shouldn't have used the name 10. They are legally obligated to defend there trademark but how you do so is the contention. If you crash into my car you need to give me your insurance information, I could step out my car screaming at you demanding that you pay for more car, or I could approach the sitation calmly to try and get a friendly result. Everyone involved in this knew each other, if Leah decided afterwards she wouldn't listen to the friendly response then you bring out the big guns.

[@micycle8778]

OSS lore is deeper than GTA campaign storylines

[@alexiekola]

Time to kiss and make up me thinks. both are right both are wrong, geez Hey Brodie hows it feel being piggy in the middle?

[@alexiekola]

@@giusdbg Frankly I am one not for drama, I believe in honor and integrity, So your assumptions of me are flawed. Seems they had some sort of contact before this drama and has turned bitter over opinons. Saying they did it for fame lol I believe it just 2 different beliefs here and as they spite each other. So were is the bow?

[@paladingeorge6098]

I tend to agree with many of the values of the free software foundation, but they tend to be a little overzealous. I definitely agree that having a working system now is more important than being totally "free". In the end, true freedom is having choice and respecting when peoples' choices don't align with your values.

[@BrodieRobertson]

I see what you're saying but that depends on what your end goal is, Leah is standing for getting more people to be able to use a free software system, whereas the free software foundation is standing for pure free software even though nobody can use it on hardware they want to use

[@NiceMicroTV]

It is the "Free Software Foundation", not the "software compromises foundation", neither the "freedom of choice foundation". Their job is to advocate for free software and computing freedoms. Whenever the ideals can not be reached due to practical limitations and hardware vendor subterfuge, other people, like Leah can add their own, compromise-based solutions, and in the end, the user can chose whether they want to use free software or where they want to compromise on it.

[@BrodieRobertson]

@@NiceMicroTV For sure the FSF has the FSF goals but that's why Leah operates outside of it

[@paladingeorge6098]

@@NiceMicroTV Thats my whole point. Nobody is asking the FSF to change their goals, but to at least respect other people for having theirs. Im not saying Leah is completely innocent here, but the whole feud is pointless and destructive to both.

[@complexity5545]

You know its going up Schitz Creek when they're fighting over names. This is silly.

[@jdal21]

top tier introverts drama

[@romangeneral23]

Easy way to avoid the drama. Stay as far away from linux as possible...

[@gushock5487]

As long as the code is not free as in freedom, as long as the projects are not free as in freedom, as long as the bootloaders are not free as in freedom they are private and commercial endeavors. The rest is conversation.

[@MaximilienNoal]

It sounds like that old train wreck of a fork of cdrecord into cdrdao. It was based on an old version, buggy, and unmaintained. But released and used with no testing whatsoever ! Blah. The fsf is useless.

[@SpaljeniLik]

Why was trhis recommended to me?

[@BrodieRobertson]

Good question

[@georgeh6856]

With this controversy over totally free vs. projects with some non-free software, on a side note, every time I write online that I use ZFS as my GNU+Linux+KDE+Pipewire+blah, blah, blah root filesystem, I always get trolled about how they are surprised I have not already been hauled off to some secret prison by the FBI and sentenced to death (only slightly exaggerating). I have used ZFS with Linux et al. for years now. Not once have any law enforcement showed up at my door. Not once have I been civilly sued or even threatened. Now that should really set the trolls off.

[@MenkoDany]

This whole thing is really, really, really dumb. That being said, I find this OSS "fight" refreshing welcome after all the stupid CoC fights

[@brunothedev]

FOSS "community"(community is never the right word for online spaces but i can't think of anything) is on the verge collapsing into multiple "cliques" because of how much division is going on, the FSF isn't the only aggressor though

[@phylwx]

because it was always such a monolithic and coherently moving group? LOL

[@DrKartoffelsalat]

Buddy, the FOSS community has experienced serious balkanisation since the 2000s the latest. You have the FSF-/GPL-nutters (i may be overdramatizing), the "we love permissive"-crowd, the "anti-copylefters", the "OSI > FSF"-peeps and so on... but the FSF has played a major part in all of this (from the GPLv3 saga, to Stallmann in general, brining him back was the latest of the very big FSF-oofs that caused more people/orgs distancing themselfs from the FSF).

[@Wampa842]

I shudder to imagine the state of the Linux ecosystem if the Stallmanites had their way.

[@damianateiro]

linux would not even be a bsd, 90% of people use proprietary hardware or software, even if it is one, in addition to the fact that their prized thinkpads are proprietary, go make your own thinkpad and lenovo denounces you xd

[@o_q]

if the anti-stallmanites had their way, linux would be closed source

[@damianateiro]

@@o_q no because torvalds and his team have the last word, and the point is to have a balance both extremes are bad

[@mina86]

If it wasn’t for FSF’s GPL, Linux would be Linus’ hobby project.

[@happygofishing]

Total bsd-license death

[@oraz.]

This Leah person seems a bit off imo

[@taylork2281]

he disfigured and renamed himself because he doesn't fundamentally even know what gender he is, so it's not surprising with a person with such little grip on reality...

[@liquidsnake6879]

GNU Boot is not meant to be on par with the latest release of libreboot, it's meant to ensure that it does not add more blobs to the users' system, in that regard it doesn't matter if it's a bit behind, the priorities are different. If you're passionate about free software you're unlikely to be using the latest laptops from Lenovo or whatever anyways because those are always going to be filled up to the gills with blobs and unsafe nonsense. It's just a question of which side you're on, if you really care about this stuff then the FSF is correct, if you don't then Leah is correct, but if that is the point and you're in the business of just slight reduction of blobs and not outright removal wherever possible then why are you even bothering? That to me is what seems to be the real wasted effort. The blobs you allow break whatever freedom you're supposed to have and if you trust Lenovo and co's blobs then why don't you just use Windows? Why do you trust Lenovo but not Microsoft? As for the hardware critique it is somewhat valid but if the Kernel can update the firmware so can bad actors and they can have the firmware doing all kinds of things to your device, if the firmware is not replaceable and is baked into a ROM chip then you only need to audit it once and make sure it's doing nothing nefarious and you're set from there as nobody can change it, if it's in flash memory then that is no longer the case and the hardware in question becomes a vector through which your system integrity can be remotely (and in most cases permanently) violated as most users are highly unlikely to ever screw around with their firmware themselves

[@BrodieRobertson]

For context the kind of laptops supported are in the range of the Thinkpad T400 and X200

[@DanielRumbacher]

@@BrodieRobertson as much as i find many thing gnu does to be drama...i see their goals as good. there will never be a time where we have a free hardware foundation. we will also never have hardware that has no firmware/blobs. so gnu does everything they can to give us real free software. we already live in a time where we can see that in the future everything will become corporate. nothing will be reliable anymore. so gnus goals are very important for future generations, even when you lose much hardware support. its not means to be for everyone but for people who chose to use this totally free system. i dont like gnus drama but their goals are very good i think.

[@Spartan322]

Firmware updates don't replace the hardware's firmware, that's pretty much always inbuilt and irreplaceable, and no you can't see that and it can't be audited, there is no way to examine that. What usually happens is firmware updates download to a local writable place and the chip firmware tries to load the firmware update automatically, the update generally operates on the basis of a hidden encryption key that was put into the machine (or the chip firmware even) so that only their updates can be installed and used, often times this firmware is also encrypted so aside from needing to decompile the firmware, which you might have to get access to, it likely is obfuscated and encrypted as well, least until its in a place the chip can load the new firmware on. The only way you can install firmware through this without being related to the company is if you get access or leak that special key, which has happened a few times, but not to every company, and what always happens is a rapid change and occasionally even a small sized recall of devices most affected by something like that, they'll try to change the secret key in as many devices as possible on the hardware. (because yes it is written into the hardware to do this) Usually the key's identity itself is airgapped and has a lot of security, legal and physical, surrounding the specific case, but not every company does this, and sometimes the companies that don't do this screw other companies over when they get hacked, but all this has been generally uncommon aside from certain hardware manufacturers.

[@Spartan322]

@@DanielRumbacher Their goals would be great if only they could actually be reasonable, but they're completely poisoned by ideology alone, they don't care about regular people, they just want to enforce a dumb religion, its not pragmatic and unless someone starts a successful GNU death cult, there is no way its going to succeed, especially when they keep screwing with regular and reasonable people and pissing them off and then complaining at them for using something they have no choice but to use.

[@adrianramos4400]

@@DanielRumbacher you and liquidsnake hit the mark. GNU has their own goals, doesn't matter if they're behind at all. if people want to have reliable truly free software, promote true FOSS so that we have more people. without gnu the linux kernel would be pointless

[@thingsiplay]

In GNU plus Linux, nothing is ever over. Never. Edit: It's your personal guess what I have edited.

[@darukutsu]

Yeah, everything is archived.

[@thrumbo]

Original coment: "Your mom gae"

[@foogod4237]

See, the whole supposed justification for GNU boot is still stupid, IMHO. "there are people that just want something free and nothing else" *Then use libreboot* and just _don't use any of the non-free binary blobs._ What's that? It doesn't work on your platform without them? *Then GNU boot wouldn't work either.* The insinuation that GNU boot is somehow "more free" than libreboot is just wrong, as far as I can tell, because _if the platform can be completely free_ then libreboot already is completely free on that platform, exactly the same as GNU boot would be. If the platform cannot be completely free, then libreboot is "more free than stock", while GNU boot is just "broken and unusable" instead. It needs to be usable in order to be valid. If it's actually unusable, then it's _not actually a free alternative_ at all. GNU boot does not do anything you can't already do with libreboot anyway, it just does it all worse for no benefit to anyone (not even for the die-hard all-free-or-nothing folks). This is entirely about religious power struggles and semantic quibbling, not about any real or legitimate differences in "freedom".

[@snap_oversteer]

As coreboot user I really don't get the point of libreboot, GNU boot and other forks focused on removing blobs as you can build coreboot without any blobs and you get exactly the same thing. But any Intel system since around 2009 needs at least the ME blob (which can be cleaned a bit on some platforms), later platforms need even more blobs (MRC, FSP etc.).

[@BrodieRobertson]

Convenience

[@yigitorhan7654]

What's the situation with AMD? I know it has an ME equivalent but not much else

[@snap_oversteer]

@@yigitorhan7654 Bad, as you said it has ME equivalent - the PSP, and some new mobile Ryzens also have very sketchy Microsoft Pluton module with "chip to cloud" security and other fun stuff... as for coreboot support, it's basically non-existant. Newest AMD CPU that can run coreboot is from around 2010 I think.

[@snap_oversteer]

@@BrodieRobertson I get that, but on the other side there's usually no such thing as convinence when you're installing coreboot/libreboot/etc. In many cases you must physically connect to the chip with a flash programmer first, dump it, then use the IFD, ME, GBE etc. blobs to build something bootable, flash it back and hope it boots. And on many laptops that also means disassembling it completely...

[@BrodieRobertson]

@@snap_oversteer for sure neither method is convenient to the average user but think of it in other terms, arch linux is a lot more convenient than linux from scratch, neither is convenient in a general sense but it's still more convenient

[@mystixa]

So its a nerd peeing contest. Cool. /s

[@oCMSo]

By now, FSF needs to die and a new one be made that is not wearing rose glasses

[@2231puppy]

I'm with Leah on this one. The GNU folks are being drama llamas (drama... gnus?)

[@szneka12]

Utilitarian VS Idealistic ideologies clash. Every single time the utilitarian one is WRONG. Go to windows or mac instead. Leave pure libreboot alone. FSF was never about mass adoption, but about standing up for what is right. It's obvious this Leah person is wrong. Binary blobs are proprietary and therefore SHOULD NOT BE TRUSTED! To burn down an entire project like this is pathetic. It's not supposed to be "somewhat-libre-boot". It's either libre... or not!

[@Bilskirnir3124]

So, why is having the proprietary code deeply embedded in the hardware better than allowing for solutions that allow the code to be changed out at some point? What makes that more free when you will never have the choice to remove the proprietary code from the hardware?

[@bltzcstrnx]

Utilitarian may be wrong, but at least it works.

[@_sneer_]

@@bltzcstrnx so does not owning the stuff you buy but come on

[@_sneer_]

Yeah, rename it to AlmostLibreBoot if it is not Libre

[@bltzcstrnx]

@@_sneer_ I got a lot of things to worry about in my life. Yes FLOSS is good, but getting the job done and getting paid is far better than bickering about "true" FLOSS while your system can't even boot. Sorry, but my job requires me to actually have a working system. At the end of the day, people need food, housing, etc, not ideals.

[@glitchedpixelscriticaldamage]

you lost me when you spoke the word : "hackernews" , how can you read that shit? ok, I'm out.

[@BrodieRobertson]

It's basically just reddit

[@smithrockford-dv1nb]

GNU being GNU. They, along with Stallman don't deserve anything.

[@JNET_Reloaded]

Nvr heard of any of this bollix its all irrelevant

[@hapatraditionalist1478]

Free software hardliners be like "Bro use this other thing that works less well and doesn't support new hardware but trust me bro it's better because muh binary blobs"

[@jezebelmei195]

Pretty sure Leah's pronouns are They/Them Brodie. You should update the video to fix that.

[@BrodieRobertson]

In a blog post Leah says either are ok, but regardless, Leah watches these videos and considers me a friend, if there's anything wrong with something I said my DMs are open

[@jezebelmei195]

@@BrodieRobertson Roger that then, I tend to get a bit frustrated because lots of people have been going out of their way to misgender Leah. But if they say it's aight then it's aight.

[@kolz4ever1980]

It's one person weirdo so it's either a dude or girl. Simple. There's no multiple people for they... 😂

[@jezebelmei195]

@@kolz4ever1980 Sweetie, Singular They has been used for over 600 years. Stop being a transphobe

[@kolz4ever1980]

@@jezebelmei195 aww mentally ill person panderer crying with those weaponized words like you're gonna get someone canceled or fired. Sorry bruh, that's not gonna work here and neither is your weirdo labels for biological girls and guys. ;)