Libreboot 20230423 Allows A Few More Boards To Run On Fully Open-Source Firmware

[phoronix]

Phoronix: Libreboot 20230423 Allows A Few More Boards To Run On Fully Open-Source Firmware

Libreboot as the downstream of Coreboot focused on ensuring 100% open-source system firmware support without any lurking binary blobs is out this Sunday with a new feature release...

https://www.phoronix.com/news/Libreboot-20230423

[blackiwid]

Libreboot as the downstream of Coreboot focused on ensuring 100% open-source system firmware support without any lurking binary blobs is out this Sunday with a new feature release...

How is that sentence compatible to:

The old Libreboot policy was quite austere, banning all firmware blobs and, consequently, Libreboot supported less hardware. The libreboot project merged osboot into it, adopting its more pragmatic policy. The underlying message behind Libreboot’s new policy is this:

Some freedom is better than none.

You can have positive or negative opinion on this new policies, but there is no "ensuring 100% open-source system firmware support without any lurking binary blobs", maybe my english is to bad, but I think their mission statement or whatever it's called is 100% contradicting this sentence.

[Magissia]

They modified the mission.

[chocolate]

Libreboot dot org's mission now sounds to me like more eagerly freeing coreboot whenever possible, and maintaining functioning libre hardware where coreboot might lose interest.

For the original Libreboot mission, see Libreboot dot at. Good luck to everybody involved. Everything has its reason, but I tend to agree that Libreboot dot org now has a somewhat confusing name.

[blackiwid]

Libreboot dot org's mission now sounds to me like more eagerly freeing coreboot whenever possible, and maintaining functioning libre hardware where coreboot might lose interest.

For the original Libreboot mission, see Libreboot dot at. Good luck to everybody involved. Everything has its reason, but I tend to agree that Libreboot dot org now has a somewhat confusing name.

I think they should maybe 2 different certificates Bronze and Gold or something. Like (a lot freed vs really fully freed), I think the developer just thinks that the original definition of free was hypocritical and simultaneously saying it was not free enough to be really free but saying less free is free enough for them.

So I just don't get it if you see no value in the FSF definition why not just fusionate with coreboot and have not double the infrastructure costs / time consumption. The only reason I could think of is that they can't get along other people very well.

I really want to make out of lemon lemonade and not just hate here, but if nothing else changes at least Phoronix should report differently more accurately about them, and in some way the old philosophy should be targeted, be it by another fork or just a label to have it very obvious if you want something really free and guaranteed without rootkits or other malicious code in it, you can differentiate it, without reading 10 wiki pages about the hardware you are interested just to find out that the cost / benefit (high time costs -> no real/full freedom).

I even wonder why under multiple news about this project this criticisms were mentioned yet Michael keeps reporting falsely about it. Is it fear for trouble with certain communities or what is it? I mean we don't want him to report about his gender believes or something alike, just about technological facts? That's maybe wild speculations but I just can't understand why this goes on and on, wrong reporting about this project? I doubt Michael don't knows this? He probably even have a news about the new course of the project where I learned about it, he probably reads also at least the first few comments under his news, so I just can't understand why this well close to fake news articles about this pop up again and again here?

Is it to promote linux to not put vinegar into wine?

[rawr]

You can have positive or negative opinion on this new policies, but there is no "ensuring 100% open-source system firmware support without any lurking binary blobs", maybe my english is to bad, but I think their mission statement or whatever it's called is 100% contradicting this sentence.

Probably the keyword is "focussed" which is past tense. Things changed. Libreboot.org is mostly Leah Rowe afaik. Libreboot.at split because they want to keep the 100% free approach which is IMO not feasible. Not that you should not try, but pretending to do something that is currently not possible is IMO more harmful than documenting the shortcomings and try the best achievable.

Also to clarify: .org ships microcode per default. It's just that you have the option to easily disable it.

"Libreboot includes CPU microcode updates by default, on all x86 hardware. This includes boards that it supported prior to the new policy enacted last year; before the policy change, Libreboot excluded these updates (but the code for loading them was retained, so you could manually add them yourself if you wanted to)."

[blackiwid]

Probably the keyword is "focussed" which is past tense. Things changed. Libreboot.org is mostly Leah Rowe afaik. Libreboot.at split because they want to keep the 100% free approach which is IMO not feasible. Not that you should not try, but pretending to do something that is currently not possible is IMO more harmful than documenting the shortcomings and try the best achievable.

How is that harmful? I would argue using the name libre for something that is not libre is worse than nothing, like a false sense of security is worse than knowing that your system is insecure and it is.

[rawr]

How is that harmful? I would argue using the name libre for something that is not libre is worse than nothing, like a false sense of security is worse than knowing that your system is insecure and it is.

That's exactly what I meant. For example, how is firmware that is stored in an opaque flash chip on the device more libre than having a blob that is then loaded into a ram chip. Indeed you can argue if it is more user friendly since the firmware is always bundled if it is stored on the device. But truly it's only truly libre if you have open and free software and ideally also open and free hardware. IMO both project strive for the same goal, but one tries to maintain an illusion that does not help. Like shipping no microcode updates for they are blobs.

[blackiwid]

That's exactly what I meant. For example, how is firmware that is stored in an opaque flash chip on the device more libre than having a blob that is then loaded into a ram chip. Indeed you can argue if it is more user friendly since the firmware is always bundled if it is stored on the device. But truly it's only truly libre if you have open and free software and ideally also open and free hardware. IMO both project strive for the same goal, but one tries to maintain an illusion that does not help. Like shipping no microcode updates for they are blobs.

Even if I would follow your logic that project should not have the name libre, but I can understand the argument to see very limited firmware as hardware, if it's not get updated. the question would be FGPA or what's it called, that is technically hardware but behaves similar to software. Of course if you think something has to be openhardware to be libre-"software", then all nuance or whatever does not matter to you. But it's called libreboot not libre-computer.

It's hard for a non kernel / firmware dev or compiler developer to go into a deep discussion why what matters exactly or somebody that has deep knowledge about fgpa but I heard good arguments, eventually over time the chance increases that you find from a static not changing softwarestack all it's problem, you see somewhere network packages if the firmware has even access to stuff enough to forgo the OS to send data or similar stuff. Sure you are never 100% sure but even with fully libre hardware and opensource firmware you are not fully secure that there is no bug that can be abused for stuff.