Libreboot – A free BIOS or UEFI replacement • Hacker News Board

If 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?

Re: Libreboot – A free BIOS or UEFI replacement

#5

Post by yuhong » Sun, Oct 09, 2016, 1:23 AM UTC

BafS wrote: post #3

onde2rock wrote: post #2

Hum, so any recent news on the libreboot project ?

Maybe it is more about that: https://libreboot.org/gnu/

I think this is also a good time to think about whether the ideology is actually a good idea too.

Re: Libreboot – A free BIOS or UEFI replacement

#6

Post by HisGraceTheDuck » Sun, Oct 09, 2016, 1:34 AM UTC

geofft wrote: post #4

If 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.

Re: Libreboot – A free BIOS or UEFI replacement

#7

Post by HisGraceTheDuck » Sun, Oct 09, 2016, 1:43 AM UTC

yuhong wrote: post #5

BafS wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe it is more about that: https://libreboot.org/gnu/

I think this is also a good time to think about whether the ideology is actually a good idea too.

Sometimes people have to do what they believe is right.

Re: Libreboot – A free BIOS or UEFI replacement

#8

Post by geofft » Sun, Oct 09, 2016, 2:16 AM UTC

yuhong wrote: post #5

BafS wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe it is more about that: https://libreboot.org/gnu/

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 from hardware to firmware, i.e., enabling (at least in theory) the end user to change how their computing works, makes a system less "free" in the GNU definition, because the standard for measurement is how computers used to be. There's the fact that GNU has never prioritized the web platform (possibly because Stallman doesn't use a web browser, and instead emails URLs to a server that replies with a lynx -dump of the page, reading the response when he checks email the next day), and so, one, there's very little support for a freedom-respecting web browser, and two, there is basically no attempt at solving the JavaScript trap, on the grounds that not running JS is better. There's the complete lack of an ethos on cloud computing other than "Don't," despite the fact that GNU comes out of the university environment where all your computing was controlled by someone else, namely the university sysadmins.

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." It's sadly quite unsurprising that the same ideology means that when an employee is harassed in a way that the executives haven't personally experienced, they assume that the employee must be doing something wrong.

Re: Libreboot – A free BIOS or UEFI replacement

#9

Post by DashRattlesnake » Sun, Oct 09, 2016, 2:21 AM UTC

BafS wrote: post #3

onde2rock wrote: post #2

Hum, so any recent news on the libreboot project ?

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).

Re: Libreboot – A free BIOS or UEFI replacement

#10

Post by j_koreth » Sun, Oct 09, 2016, 2:22 AM UTC

geofft wrote: post #8

yuhong wrote: post #5

Earlier 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…

>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.

There is no proof has been disclosed indicating the person fired was for receiving too much harrassment and with the responses of the rest of libreboot devs I don't think such a thing happened at all.

>There's the fact that GNU has never prioritized the web platform (possibly because Stallman doesn't use a web browser, and instead emails URLs to a server that replies with a lynx -dump of the page, reading the response when he checks email the next day), and so, one, there's very little support for a freedom-respecting web browser,

Besides https://www.gnu.org/software/gnuzilla/ ?

> and two, there is basically no attempt at solving the JavaScript trap, on the grounds that not running JS is better. There's the complete lack of an ethos on cloud computing other than "Don't," despite the fact that GNU comes out of the university environment where all your computing was controlled by someone else, namely the university sysadmins.

Are you sure https://www.gnu.org/software/librejs/ doesn't solve your needs?