Changing the BIOS on, say a late model Thinkpad would be difficult. Doesn't the update utility verify the signatures before flashing?
Libreboot – A free BIOS or UEFI replacement
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Re: Libreboot – A free BIOS or UEFI replacement
#12If I want to hack on Libreboot on a separate machine from my primary one, what's a good laptop to get? Are there laptops that are close to working but not on the HCL yet?
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Re: Libreboot – A free BIOS or UEFI replacement
#13Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think this is also a good time to think about whether the ideology is actually a good idea too.
Yeah, it's long past time to reconsider whether GNU's ideology is actually working - if you have an organization that's dedicated to "freedom" that's firing people because they receive too much harassment, something has gone wrong. I've been of the opinion for many years that GNU is delivering something more like "freedom for people who are in our situation." There's the counterintuitive effect where moving things fr…
> So, ultimately, there's a long history of the GNU folks not anticipating ways in which people have their computing freedoms infringed and basically going "Well you're doing something wrong, stop doing that."
RMS agrees with you! From his Reddit AMA a while back [1].
All in all, I think it is a mistake to defend people's rights with one hand tied behind our backs, using nothing except the individual option to say no to a deal. We should use democracy to organize and together impose limits on what the rich can do to the rest of us. That's what democracy was invented for!
> very little support for a freedom-respecting web browser
I mean 15-20% market share for Firefox doesn't really sound like much but it's much better than the 2% that Linux has.
> possibly because Stallman doesn't use a web browser
Not that it really matters in this discussion but that's not really true anymore. He supposedly uses Firefox with Tor.
> not running JS is better
He's not exactly wrong. Just from a security perspective alone, would you feel comfortable running random binaries downloaded from the internet? You're putting a lot of faith in your browser's sandbox. Outside of F/OSS libraries most JS on the web is proprietary. The LibreJS [2] project is something that's supposed to counteract this (and I support it on my site) but it's beyond niche even in tech circles.
Re: Libreboot – A free BIOS or UEFI replacement
#14Changing the BIOS on, say a late model Thinkpad would be difficult. Doesn't the update utility verify the signatures before flashing?
Most of their supported machines (including at least a few of the Thinkpads they support) look like they can't be flashed "online" from the OEM firmware. For that hardware, their documentation says you'd have to disassemble the machine and flash the firmware externally.
Obviously, this requires specialized hardware, but it's not completely insurmountable if you're really determined to run the thing.
Re: Libreboot – A free BIOS or UEFI replacement
#15If I want to hack on Libreboot on a separate machine from my primary one, what's a good laptop to get? Are there laptops that are close to working but not on the HCL yet?
Here's the list of compatible laptops: https://libreboot.org/docs/hcl/index.html#supported_laptops_... Nothing recent but on the plus side, you should be able to pick one up without spending too much.
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Re: Libreboot – A free BIOS or UEFI replacement
#16If I want to hack on Libreboot on a separate machine from my primary one, what's a good laptop to get? Are there laptops that are close to working but not on the HCL yet?
Here's the list of compatible laptops: https://libreboot.org/docs/hcl/index.html#supported_laptops_... Nothing recent but on the plus side, you should be able to pick one up without spending too much.
Chromebook C201 is very recent (currently sold new), supercheap (<$200), and can run not only Libreboot, but completely blob-free. Not even CPU microcode is needed.
Re: Libreboot – A free BIOS or UEFI replacement
#17Earlier quoted context omitted.
Here's the list of compatible laptops: https://libreboot.org/docs/hcl/index.html#supported_laptops_... Nothing recent but on the plus side, you should be able to pick one up without spending too much.
Chromebook C201 is very recent (currently sold new), supercheap (<$200), and can run not only Libreboot, but completely blob-free. Not even CPU microcode is needed.
Do you need a binary blob to run the RockChip GPU though?
Re: Libreboot – A free BIOS or UEFI replacement
#18Earlier quoted context omitted.
Maybe it is more about that: https://libreboot.org/gnu/
I was actually thinking of giving LibreBoot a try until all this drama broke. Now it just seems like the personal soapbox of a particular individual, which doesn't inspire a lot of confidence in its viability (especially given how ambitious it is).
I got a feeling we'll see more of this happening.
Was the transgender employee fired because she was transgender, or was she fired for some other reason? It is really hard to tell unless there is a court case on it.
If you remember Ellen Pao claimed she was fired because of her gender, and it went to court, and the only proof that they had for anything was that Pao was bullying others and being a bad employee with performance issues.
Transgender people need to be treated with respect and dignity, but if they don't perform well they will get fired like anyone else.
I don't like the drama either, but it happens from time to time.
Re: Libreboot – A free BIOS or UEFI replacement
#19Isn't libreboot just coreboot minus blobs?
I don't get why it is in any way remarkable.
Re: Libreboot – A free BIOS or UEFI replacement
#20for a long time i thought the name of the project was libReboot. libreBoot does make more sense though.