"100% Free" GNU Boot Discovers Again They Have Been Shipping Non-Free Code

Written by Michael Larabel in GNU on 19 October 2024 at 03:11 PM EDT. 61 Comments
GNU
GNU Boot is a "100% free software project aimed at replacing the non-free boot software" and is a downstream of Coreboot, GRUB, and SeaBIOS. While priding itself on being "100% free", last December they had to drop some motherboard support and CPU code after discovering they were shipping some files that are non-free by their free software standards. Today they announced another mistake in having inadvertently been shipping additional non-free code.

GNU Boot discovered an issue with non-free code affecting not only them but also some of the Linux distributions that pride themselves on being fully free software / 100% open-source. This latest snafu they say is "more problematic" than their prior non-free code discover due to impacting the free software Linux distributions too.

broken motherboard


The issue at hand though comes down to test data contained within the archive and that containing non-free code in the form of microcode, BIOS bits, and Intel Management Engine firmware.

Today's announcement explains:
"The vboot source code used in Coreboot and in the vboot-utils package available in many GNU/Linux distributions contains nonfree code in their test data in tests/futility/data (nonfree microcode, nonfree BIOS, nonfree Management Engine firmwares, etc)."

So from a user perspective, not as worrisome unless being a free software purist as ultimately it amounts to bundled test data.

In any event they have re-spun their latest releases to avoid these non-free code bits. This commit makes the change to remove all the assets from the offending directory.
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Michael Larabel is the principal author of Phoronix.com and founded the site in 2004 with a focus on enriching the Linux hardware experience. Michael has written more than 20,000 articles covering the state of Linux hardware support, Linux performance, graphics drivers, and other topics. Michael is also the lead developer of the Phoronix Test Suite, Phoromatic, and OpenBenchmarking.org automated benchmarking software. He can be followed via Twitter, LinkedIn, or contacted via MichaelLarabel.com.

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