Full Disclosure mailing list archives
Re: [linux-elitists] Gutsy Gibbon to include strictly-free branch (fwd)
From: Jay Sulzberger <jays () panix com>
Date: Mon, 16 Apr 2007 22:54:33 -0400 (EDT)
---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Mon, 16 Apr 2007 19:04:06 -0700 From: Dave Crossland <dave () lab6 com> To: Greg KH <greg () kroah com> Cc: linux-elitists () zgp org Subject: Re: [linux-elitists] Gutsy Gibbon to include strictly-free branch On 16/04/07, Greg KH <greg () kroah com> wrote: > > takes an ultra-orthodox view of licensing: no firmware, drivers, > > imagery, sounds, applications, or other content which do not > > include full source materials and come with full rights of > > modification, remixing and redistribution. There should be no > > more conservative home, for those who demand a super-strict > > interpretation of the 'free' in free software. This work will > > be done in collaboration with the folks behind Gnewsense." > > Hm, to do this properly it should only boot if you have linuxbios > installed, but what's the odds that people will realize that... That depends how nasty proprietary BIOS behave... "Intel EFI is a DRM bios, since it has unlimited control of your memory and I/O, and implements a full network stack. So the BIOS can veto your I/O, and report your being veto'd over the network. By design. I know people at banks who are very unhappy with this. They thought they were running GNU/Linux and knew what the whole thing was doing. A few years ago Intel were explaining the cool EFI stuff, how EFI can download a new version of the BIOS and burn it to flash, on its own. They explained how convenient this is - but chaos went off when the banks heard about this. For the banks, like LANL, when we buy a consumer machine, we either demand full, buildable, source code to their BIOS, or that they ship LinuxBIOS, now." - http://understandinglimited.com/2007/04/15/fosdem-2007-notes/ If you care about freedom, you'll be aware of this problem, and your next motherboard will be something listed on http://linuxbios.org/Supported_Motherboards - the Gigabyte M57SLI-S4 is the current favourite, and FSF sysad Ward Cunningham has written http://linuxbios.org/M57SLI-S4_Build_Tutorial -- Regards, Dave _______________________________________________ linux-elitists mailing list linux-elitists () zgp org http://allium.zgp.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/linux-elitists _______________________________________________ Full-Disclosure - We believe in it. Charter: http://lists.grok.org.uk/full-disclosure-charter.html Hosted and sponsored by Secunia - http://secunia.com/
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- Re: [linux-elitists] Gutsy Gibbon to include strictly-free branch (fwd) Jay Sulzberger (Apr 16)