[HN Gopher] Libreboot 20230423
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Libreboot 20230423
Author : leahlibre
Score : 110 points
Date : 2023-04-23 11:57 UTC (11 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (libreboot.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (libreboot.org)
| gclawes wrote:
| Does Libreboot (.org) still have the binary blob drama going on?
| anonym29 wrote:
| Haven't heard of this, can you share more context or a link to
| a story about this?
| LukeShu wrote:
| There was a sibling "osboot" project that allowed in the
| minimum amount of binary blobs to add support for more
| boards. This is at odds with the FSF's RYF and FSDG policies.
| In November 2022, libreboot merged osboot, adopting osboot's
| more permissive binary blob policy (
| https://libreboot.org/news/policy.html ). Because libreboot
| is no longer in compliance with the FSF's policies, this has
| created some drama in the community. Some of the libreboot
| contributors have even split off and created a fork (also
| claiming the Libreboot name: https://libreboot.at/ ).
| lioeters wrote:
| Perhaps they can distinguish themselves as LibReboot, in
| contrast to LibreBoot.
| jeroenhd wrote:
| I'm pretty sure that "drama" is the whole reason Libreboot
| exists, instead of just merging into the Coreboot project it's
| based on.
| Riku_V wrote:
| Nope, what libreboot does is make coreboot simple for end
| users to install. With coreboot, you have to configure it
| manually (by design). Libreboot even provides pre-compiled
| binaries (with clear instructions on how to install them).
| neilv wrote:
| This? https://libreboot.org/freedom-status.html
|
| I wouldn't call it drama. There's often important practical
| reasons to try to minimize closed parts of the firmware. See
| also the high-security / high-trustworthiness work of Purism.
| matheusmoreira wrote:
| > See also the high-security / high-trustworthiness work of
| Purism.
|
| After reading the posts from marcan_42 and GrapheneOS
| developer strcat, I have a much lower opinion of Purism.
|
| https://hn.algolia.com/?query=strcat%20purism&sort=byDate&ty.
| ..
|
| https://hn.algolia.com/?query=marcan_42%20purism&sort=byDate.
| ..
| LukeShu wrote:
| There's definitely drama around it. There's drama around
| whether devices seeking RYF certification can use newer
| (blob-allowing) versions of Libreboot, even if the devices
| has a board for which Libreboot doesn't use blobs. There's
| drama around whether FSDG-following GNU/Linux distros can
| still ship the Libreboot tools.
|
| The page https://libreboot.org/news/policy.html does a better
| job of showing how the Libreboot's policy is at odds with the
| FSF's RYF and FSDG policies. And that disagreement between
| Libreboot and the FSF definitely causes drama in the
| community.
|
| Heck, a few Libreboot contributors split off and created a
| fork (also claiming the Libreboot name):
| https://libreboot.at/
| newswasboring wrote:
| I'm curious why you call it drama and not debate. Every
| open source project is constantly debating new ideas.
| Calling something drama has a connotation of another layer
| of ego.
| yjftsjthsd-h wrote:
| A debate can have an answer; this is two groups with
| mutually exclusive subjective views.
| newswasboring wrote:
| But you can absolutely debate subjective issues. We do
| that all the time when discussing policies.
| LukeShu wrote:
| But I would say that there _is_ an answer here. Given the
| mutually-agreed on objective of protecting /creating-a-
| distribution-that-respects the users' rights to the 4
| freedoms as defined by the FSF, there is an answer as to
| which policy best serves that goal.
|
| Libreboot has said "given that goal, we believe that the
| FSF's RYF and FSDG policies are problematic and partially
| undermine the goal", and the FSF has said "no, we believe
| that our RYF and FSDG policies are the best policies at
| this point in time, and Libreboot's non-compliance with
| those policies partially undermines the goal". But both
| sides agree on the goal.
| LukeShu wrote:
| When there's a fork and disagreement over who "owns" the
| name, that's drama.
| mindslight wrote:
| I hadn't seen this new Libreboot policy. This is fantastic!
|
| The FSF's criteria have become quite calcified and
| unprincipled at this point. Specifically I'm talking about
| how blobs loaded from flash are given a pass, while blobs
| on isolated coprocessors are verboten.
|
| Principle requires that binary blobs in flash (or even ROM)
| are put in the same class as every other binary blob. And
| pragmatism for the modern world requires that we
| incorporate security relationships into our analysis of
| user freedom.
| remram wrote:
| I have a lot of trouble reading it a "libre boot" rather than
| "lib reboot". The lib prefix is so common in open-source/Linux.
| Szpadel wrote:
| I never noticed that before, now I cannot unsee it
| xpil wrote:
| Same here :)))
| anthk wrote:
| https://libreboot.at
| endorphine wrote:
| Can someone ELI5 what this is and what purpose does it serve?
| r12343a_19 wrote:
| I never understood what Libreboot does on top of Coreboot. As far
| as I could tell it's a "distro" of Coreboot that just disables
| some things and maybe adds a few patches.
|
| All the heavy lifting is done by Coreboot.
| newswasboring wrote:
| [flagged]
| rhn_mk1 wrote:
| The reddit discussion is severely out of date.
| newswasboring wrote:
| Yeah but I think it still resulted in the right high level
| answer. That libreboot is coreboot with less restrictions
| (,about what to include). It's adding things which don't
| fit into the coreboot philosophy.
| rhn_mk1 wrote:
| It's the opposite. Libreboot removes parts of coreboot
| which don't fit into its philosophy.
| renewiltord wrote:
| These comments are usually downvoted but they're usually
| quite useful. Thanks.
| Kwpolska wrote:
| I want to see opinions and answers from actual humans, not
| from a Random Bullshit Generator. If I wanted to see the
| Random Bullshit Generator's opinion, I would have asked it
| myself.
|
| > Libreboot is a downstream distribution (or fork) of
| coreboot which doesn't allow non-free binaries ("blobs")
|
| Libreboot does allow some blobs, if there is no good
| alternative, and because a mostly-free board is better than
| a completely non-free board according to their policy:
| https://libreboot.org/news/policy.html
|
| > and only supports a small number of devices, the vast
| majority of which are over 10 years old.
|
| That one's probably accurate.
|
| > Libreboot also doesn't "keep track" with coreboot; its
| most recent release is from mid-2016, whereas coreboot is
| updated regularly.
|
| The link we're commenting on leads to a release
| announcement. The linked announcement mentions the previous
| release was 10 days ago. There was a gap in libreboot
| releases between September 2016 and May 2021, so the Random
| Bullshit Generator's response is outdated by 2 years.
| newswasboring wrote:
| Ok, but can we calm down about this a bit? Charged
| wording you are using is giving more of a hateful
| connotation than I think is appropriate. These things are
| toys and I found the answer ok. I absolutely gave my own
| opinion and pointed out how bing AI is wrong. I
| understand disliking outputs from generators but I feel
| like this one was properly annotated by me.
|
| Edit: In my view this is similar to when some threads
| start discussing tangential issues. I've seen a post
| about world hunger have a thread about tabs and spaces.
| It's fine, this is why we have a thread system.
| Kwpolska wrote:
| Fortunately, Random Bullshit Generators do not have
| feelings, and will not get hurt by my use of the (IMO
| more appropriate) term to refer to them. They are
| overhyped, and I do not think that posting their output
| in HN comments leads to positive and thoughtful
| discussions.
| newswasboring wrote:
| They absolutely do.
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35668402
| renewiltord wrote:
| I like all my bullshit to be artisanal hand-made
| bullshit.
| newswasboring wrote:
| I'm doing it for the first time. Didn't know it will get
| this negative a reaction. I feel like the answer was
| acceptably worded. I even pointed out that I understand
| half the answer was wrong. I felt like it was in the spirit
| of HN.
| LukeShu wrote:
| Libreboot provides:
|
| - Release engineering and testing. When Libreboot started,
| upstream coreboot wasn't doing releases at all; now they are,
| but they're still not suitable for end-users who want to use
| stable tested software: "Our releases aren't primarily a
| vehicle for code that is stable across all boards"[0].
| Downstream distributions that test on a specific range of
| devices (such as Libreboot, mrchromebox.tech, and vendors such
| as Chromebooks, Purism, System 76, ...) are still important to
| the ecosystem to provide stable releases. In the words of a
| coreboot dev: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33997880
|
| - Pre-compiled and tested binaries, because lots of users
| aren't set up to build their own.
|
| - A distribution of tools for more easily installing them than
| a sequence of long `flashram` incantations.
|
| - Loads of documentation.
|
| - Pre-configuration of common payloads, such as GRUB or
| SeaBIOS.
|
| And let's not forget that the Libreboot project does contribute
| to upstream coreboot.
|
| [0]: https://doc.coreboot.org/releases/checklist.html#purpose-
| of-...
| haunter wrote:
| Pretty much +95% of the Linux distros are like this.
| Javantea_ wrote:
| That's not correct. Each distro has a huge amount of code in
| the form of patches, packaging and installation that they
| handle.
| MuffinFlavored wrote:
| Think of the manhours + resources wasted
| achieving/maintaining basically the same thing in slightly
| different ways...
| matheusmoreira wrote:
| Not really. Whoever created these distros had a specific
| vision they wanted to achieve. Debian is one thing, Arch
| is another. The world is richer for having both.
| Nextgrid wrote:
| 90% of distros' "visions" is ultimately just providing a
| general-purpose desktop/laptop OS. There's indeed an
| insane amount of wasted effort, both on developers' part
| but also users (skill portability is an issue because no
| 2 Linux distros/machines are alike).
| ldarby wrote:
| Debian and Arch are different enough that the argument
| isn't about them. The issue is the 100's of distros that
| could be replaced with just "install <major distro> and
| do apt install X" (or some other trivial thing like
| changing the default to KDE instead of Gnome).
| arp242 wrote:
| You can also replace that with "just install Windows", or
| "just use macOS".
|
| Hell, you use this for anything; "why make a new album,
| movie, or book when there are already thousands upon
| thousands of them? Yours probably isn't any better!"
| ldarby wrote:
| You completely misunderstand. Windows and Mac are
| different enough from every linux distro that the
| argument isn't about them.
|
| And if you're going to start talking about copy-rightable
| works of entertainment, then yes if you write a book
| based off another book just with 1 extra character
| (analogous to "install <major distro> and do apt install
| X") then that book would violate copyright and should not
| be written. It's the lack of copyright in FOSS that
| allows all the pointless duplication of effort with all
| the almost identical linux distros.
| matheusmoreira wrote:
| If whoever is putting in the time and money to maintain
| those things thinks it's worth, then there must be a
| reason for it.
| wrycoder wrote:
| https://libreboot.org/freedom-status.html
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(page generated 2023-04-23 23:00 UTC)