GNU Linux-Libre 5.18-gnu Continues Its Battle Against Binary Blobs

[hotaru]

no mention of removing SDSi? did they remove it and just forget to mention it, or did they leave it in?

[Developer12]

First they laugh at you...

Linux-libre is not against firmware: it's against closed firmware. You can use as much firmware as you like, so long as it respects your (software) freedoms; and that is a worthy cause to work towards.

In meaningful terms, open firmware doesn't exist. It makes up an insignificantly small percentage of the firmware code running on hardware today.

[Developer12]

I wonder whether the open-source NVIDIA driver is not good enough for Linux-libre, considering it interfaces with a blob on the graphics card.

The philosophy that spawned this sub-cult of kernel development is fundamentally unsound: https://ariadne.space/2022/01/22/the...oftware-users/

The line between what blobs are and are not allowed is absurd, and that's not even the biggest issue.

[OneTimeShot]

I suspect that non-blobbed Kernels will become more relevant in the future when open hardware becomes more prevalent. Things like USB chipsets, SSD controllers, memory controllers,Wifi, sound, backlights are sufficiently boring that companies will just want to download and manufacture a standard design.

Processors and GPUs will probably mostly have proprietary firmware for a long while yet, though...

[blackiwid]

If the world were your version of sane, GNU, Linux, and all downstream projects wouldn't exist to begin with. Inventions are born from necessity so your last line would be moot.

You can't proof that, take zfs, it get banned and railed and hated from the linux devs as much as thinkable, completely sidelined still they make their blobshit able to use and distros include it.

So just not "plattforming" to use a term from a different sphere of content, doesn't make things go away.

But even I am mostly against the ideological green bullshit, (I think it should not be completely ignored but just invested in technology and seen as realitically we will not all die from it, which is a fact, and instead of trying to solve this with technologies like this horrible batteries we have that never can solve the problem, we should stay with old technology at least to some degree and then go all into efficient new next level technology, fusion reactors or whatever), but even I am opposing to that thing, it still is widely successful, here in germany we have a green dictatorship basically. We quit russian gas not just as temporal idiotic suicidal political pressure campaign against russia we according to the government leave it for good, so even if Putin would make a 180 degree and fulfills all stuff we tell them for the sanctions according to her we would never buy necessary energy from them anymore.

So yes ideological good or bad stuff can succeed, you would surely argue that communism can't work or is bad, yet it boomed and was very very successful, in a sense of "marketshare", it ultimately failed, except if you consider todays china as communistic.

Also yes it's not just used by some strange people or whatever stereotypes here some people are telling, it's used by linux phones as far as I know. (linux as in gnu/linux, not android which google don't calls or considers a linux os, just because it has that kernel).

So how without such a project could you ever get rid and sane back to not everybody has a bug from the government with backdoors build in?

The only reason I have no such phone is because A I am poor and B I use my phone like 10-20 minutes per week because I nearly never leave my house. But give me a bit play money and I have such phone. Sure in the current climate where while covid happend I was only allowed to enter my local swimming pool with a installed android app to get a booking, and shit like that, I will keep a android phone, but I might shut it down when I don't need it or put it in a blocking container when I don't need it or whatever.

We don't know for a fact that no backdoor is on it, because of the blobs therefor I have to assume to be save that there are 1 or multiply backdoors even without the google play blobs, the Replicant Gnu/Android attempt found strong evidence pointing to "security holes" that are in the modem firmware.

So yes if I would get raped every day, and it would been normalized and nearly impossible to prevent from happening, I would still not give up the fight ever. Now you might fight harder or less hard when it seems that "resistance is futile" but as long as you have any power left you will not totally give up fighting back, if you do, you are basically broken.

Btw we just saw the petro dollar die, things change not always for the better if you stay long enough around you will have a chance to become a winner, apple looked also very dead and a joke for a long time now it's basically more powerful than Microsoft.

[qarium]

I wonder whether the open-source NVIDIA driver is not good enough for Linux-libre, considering it interfaces with a blob on the graphics card.

the nvidia kernel driver is not upsteam yet (this alone is a absolute no go)

nvidia does not have opensource usespace driver YET (this alone is a absolute no go)

Nvidias bad history sapotaging the openGL standard and their anti-opensource history should be a absolute no go to

closed source firmware and also firmware blob running on the graphics card should be a no go to.