GNU Linux-libre's Freed-ora Effort To "Free Fedora" Has Been Sunset

Freed-ora had been a seldom talked about effort from the Free Software Foundation Latin America maintainers of GNU Linux-libre to ensure a fully free software kernel was installed on interested Fedora Linux systems and that no non-free packages were installed on the system. But now that effort has come to an end.

In its most recent form, Freed-ora packages were available for install on an already established Fedora Linux system that would check to verify no non-free RPMs were installed on the system, setup the GNU Linux-libre kernel build to be the default kernel, and to prevent accidentally installing non-free software packages in the future on that system by checking the RPM license tag. The non-free package prevention includes the likes of non open-source firmware for hardware components and non-free packages from other repositories.

Freed-ora hasn't exactly been popular and FSFLA's Alexandre Oliva since moved on from using Fedora, but had agreed to continue maintaining Freed-ora until the end of the Fedora 35 cycle. With Fedora 35 recently being declared end-of-life, he is sunsetting the project as no one else stepped up to maintain it.

He wrote a farewell message on the GNU mailing list while reminiscing over the project and making some remarks about Fedora.

For now the retired Freed-ora repositories for F35 and prior remain accessible. Those wanting to use a Linux-libre kernel on Fedora are encouraged to try out RPMFreedom.