51–54 of 54 posts
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.
I think that's intentional. See also: libiberty.
(real meaning: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libiberty)
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Think of the manhours + resources wasted achieving/maintaining basically the same thing in slightly different ways...
Not really. Whoever created these distros had a specific vision they wanted to achieve. Debian is one thing, Arch is another. The world is richer for having both.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Not really. Whoever created these distros had a specific vision they wanted to achieve. Debian is one thing, Arch is another. The world is richer for having both.
I think the original comment is more about debian,Ubuntu, Lubuntu, Xubuntu, etc. And then separately, Arch vs Anarchy, etc.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I hadn't seen this new Libreboot policy. This is fantastic! The FSF's criteria have become quite calcified and unprincipled at this point. Specifically I'm talking about how blobs loaded from flash are given a pass, while blobs on isolated coprocessors are verboten. Principle requires that binary blobs in flash (or even ROM) are put in the same class as every other binary blob. And pragmatism for the modern world req…
I wouldn't say that the FSF's criteria are unprincipled. At his pre-Libreplanet talk on 2023-03-17, RMS gave a principled and pragmatic explanation of the criteria. I don't agree with him on his application of some of the principles or on where the appropriate places to make compromises between principles and pragmatism are; but that doesn't mean his conclusions are unprincipled.
The bit I'd call unprincipled is giving a pass to software that is baked into hardware, and hardware modification in general. This is pure pragmatism from the world of the 90's, regardless of the stated justification.
This crutch allows RMS to avoid having to work out an approach to analyzing systems which are combinations of libre, non-libre, and someone else's domains. And due to the rise of everpresent network connectivity, analyzing these combined systems to figure out how libre software can be used to create the most user freedom is more important than ever.
In RMS's terms, such systems just seem to be considered "unethical; avoid" and his thinking stops. This isn't particularly productive when overwhelming commercial interests herd users into those types of systems, network effects keep them there, and many are part of real businesses that can't just be forked.