Linux Vendor Firmware Service Launches

Richard Hughes announced today the Linux Vendor Firmware Service (LVFS) for hardware vendors to be able to upload their firmware files -- thus making them redistributable to fwupd users (such as with Fedora 23+) assuming they comply with the AppStream specification.

The Linux Vendor Firmware Service component is hosted in the Red Hat cloud and is where the OEM/ODMs can upload firmware files to make them available to Linux users. The firmware will then become available to those using the new fwupd open-source utility and is part of the broad push by Fedora / Red Hat developers for easy system firmware updating from the Linux desktop. This work will really start to become beneficial once Fedora 23 rolls out later this year and more hardware vendors are on board.

Red Hat is talking with many motherboard/laptop vendors for making firmware updates easier on Linux. More details on the Linux Vendor Firmware Service via Richard's blog and the LVFS site.