Libreboot 20230423

https://libreboot.org/news/libreboot20230423.html

by leahlibre • 3 years ago

142 42 3 years ago

libreboot.org

gclawes• 3 years ago

Does Libreboot (.org) still have the binary blob drama going on?

anonym292• 3 years ago

Haven't heard of this, can you share more context or a link to a story about this?

LukeShu6• 3 years ago

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/ ).

neilv• 3 years ago

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.

LukeShu6• 3 years ago

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/

matheusmoreira3• 3 years ago

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...

jeroenhd• 3 years ago

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• 3 years ago

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).

guilhas• 3 years ago

'Was'

They recently included non-free binary blobs. They should probably rename to openboot

r12343a_19• 3 years ago

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.

haunter• 3 years ago

Pretty much +95% of the Linux distros are like this.

Javantea_• 3 years ago

That's not correct. Each distro has a huge amount of code in the form of patches, packaging and installation that they handle.

wrycoder• 3 years ago

https://libreboot.org/freedom-status.html

LukeShu6• 3 years ago

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-...

remram• 3 years ago

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• 3 years ago

I never noticed that before, now I cannot unsee it

xpil• 3 years ago

Same here :)))

userbinator• 3 years ago

I think that's intentional. See also: libiberty.

michaelnoguera• 3 years ago

That name reminds me of "Liberty Biberty" from the insurance commercials: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4mrLqtmko5Y

(real meaning: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libiberty)

anthk• 3 years ago

https://libreboot.at

endorphine• 3 years ago

Can someone ELI5 what this is and what purpose does it serve?

FrostKiwi• 3 years ago

This is a pre-compiled distribution of Coreboot with the aim of sticking as close to free as in freedom philosophy.

Most importantly it identifies devices, which can be booted with as little involvement of non-free blobs (binary large objects) and pre-configures coreboot to support exactly that use-case, whilst enabling features off by default in Coreboot like CMOS settings. Also it disables the Intel Management engine, not by patching it out, but by booting in a way which does not require it to load in the first place, if possible. Depending on architecture, like some laptops with Core2 and some server boards like any AMD processor from the Bulldozer era can be booted off-of firmware images, which contain no black-box blobs from the manufacturer or parts, which cannot be recreated from FOSS code. Most crucially, this also includes μCode updates.

So it could be seen as a tradeoff in stability and performance to get close to the ideal of extending FOSS into the realm of Hardware.

Libreboot 20230423

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