Appreciated if someone can explain what is the problem and its context in simple terms 🙏
I understand the GNU “framework” is built on free, open source software. So I don’t understand how one can “discover” that there were pieces of non-free software there… They were put there by mistake?
They were put there for some testing and from their mailing list it sounds like it will be removed as it’s unnecessary.
Apologies that this has caused problems for you.
This is just some old test data used to confirm that the parser in the command line utility works, and I don’t think anyone thought about the redistribution legality implications of putting those images into the repo.
I agree that it’s not a good situation and we should try to fix it.There is no real reason for these binaries to be in those test fixtures — the point of the tests is just to verify parsing for vboot data structures, the actual contents of the file are not really relevant.
- Julius Werner, member of the Advisory Group
edit: “there is a general advisory committee made up of any individuals who wish to help out and discuss their thoughts with the leadership board. This is done at bi-weekly meetings, which all members of the project are invited to attend and contribute.”
https://coreboot.org/leadership.html
Don’t worry, the whole thing is that GNU boot contains proprietary firmware for testing coreboot. The only distros affected are GNU Boot and Canoe Boot. Upstream coreboot has that testing firmware there intentionally so it’s silly to call it “affected”.
FSF is doing great stuff for the world but I think FOSS is kinda held back by being led by nerds that are “a bit different”. (edit: I mean that with respect. These nerds are surely nice people and great coders but imo not great philosophical leaders)
They’re a bunch of idealists that are detached from reality. Kinda reminds me of myself back when I was still in college.
Look, when you’re trying to get your computer working I agree. I don’t mind having to use nonfree stuff if I literally cannot boot otherwise. But if we don’t have strong ideological fighters pushing for things like totally free systems then we wouldn’t be where we are today and we would always have to use non free stuff. So it’s definitely important we have people who are more ideologically idealist.
When Stallman was saying that smartphones would become a spying device, people were calling him crazy.
I am still thinking he’s a bit on the crazy spectrum, but that some food for thought…
Stallman is often batshit insane, but when it comes to tech he knows what he’s saying.
I would trust a doctor when he says about something about my stomach, I wouldn’t trust them about astrophysics.
I would trust Stallman about how computers can be misused and mistreated, same as Cory Doctorow. I wouldn’t trust both about a small part of history, unless it was obvious or very well cited.
Yeah and thanks to us you get to enjoy free software, yet you insult us for how we think and try to get and keep open software open.
Up yours
You are right that the tone was a little insulting.
That said, who is the “us” that you are referring to?
A lot of Open Source software is written by people that would not see the use of non-free components for testing as a problem. A lot of Open Source software is written by people that believe in the superiority of collaborative software development but do not have strong opinions on user freedom. The may ever value developer freedom in ways that is incompatible with the most extreme or idealist views of user freedom.
Are you demanding recognition to “us” for all that software?
The post you are replying to was unnecessarily combative. Your is no better and is supported by no better moral high-ground.
You’re saying that, and yet even Leah Rowe is sick of that.
Also, try not to take my words out of context. We’re talking specifically about the project mentioned in the article. Tell me, what value has canoeboot and GNU boot provides?
Coming from a (pragmatic) fan of GNU projects.
Leah Rowe probably hasn’t stopped laughing since this was published.
As a coreboot user, I’m laughing as well.
To me, this highlights the fallacy (and arguably hypocricy) of their thesis.
Falls under the heading of ask me if I give a flying fuck. Sorry, I just can’t identify with Stallman’s rather awkward and impractical form of puritanism.
In this case the binaries with the nonfree software seem be completely unnecessary, so why not keep it free?
@anamethatisnt It’s only unnecessary if you don’t happen to own hardware that requires the non-free drivers.
Not in this case, the tests they’re running doesn’t need the vendor blobs in those testing folders.
Generally I agree with Debians changes to include nonfree firmware in the default images and making the “completely free” images the non-default version. I do think maintaining and having completely free distro versions to be a good thing though.
The whole situation is really unnecessary because none of the things that we’re testing really requires those vendor blobs.
We’re just testing the basic vboot and CBFS structures in those images, the file contents are not really relevant as long as they match the signatures.
So I think the easiest option here is to just remove the offending CBFS files from those images / overwrite the offending FMAP sections with zeroes.@anamethatisnt What are the real world implications of “non-free” software? I’ve never paid a cent for it, should I?
That question is kind a rabbit hole and not one I feel confident in going down.
Free as in freedom, not as in free beer.
The real world implications of non-free software is that other’s can’t run, copy, distribute, study, change and improve the software.I like having computing alternatives that are free from corporate control and believe that the hardliners like FSF helps us keep those alternatives alive. I realise that those alternatives are in many ways worse and that a lot of hardware today requires the vendor blobs to work. When/If corporations push their control even further I want those alternatives to be around.
And you really should pay for winrar. ;-)
@anamethatisnt Yea, so you think the authors are not entitled to specify how their software is used? This is where I have a major disconnect with Richard Stallman.
Many distros affected by the ability to boot
