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clean up the policy page (make the intro shorter)

hslick-master
Leah Rowe 2022-11-20 08:53:09 +00:00
parent 25fdfbd32c
commit 848c0bcdd5
1 changed files with 29 additions and 45 deletions
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site/news/policy.md
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@ -5,52 +5,23 @@
Introduction
============
In the beginning Libreboot intentionally *de-blobbed* coreboot, which is to say
that it did not include binary blobs. Coreboot, on the other hand, requires
binary blobs on most systems that it has support for. Libreboot's
entirely *"free"* version of coreboot consequently supported fewer mainboards.
**[Osboot merged with and became part of Libreboot](merge.md) on 16
November 2022. This page contains the new Libreboot policy, which is derived
from the osboot one.**
Libreboot's zero blobs policy has
been scrapped, entirely. The goal of current libreboot is simply to support
every single system from coreboot, to provide pre-configured, automated compiling of ROM
images for *all* of them. This is quite a lot more ambitious in terms of sheer
workload, and maintenance. It is expected that the project will *grow* in the
future, to accomodate *board maintainers*, just like you have *package
maintainers* in Debian; the analogy is highly appropriate, given the nature
of the libreboot build system, which you can learn more about on the [lbmk maintenance manual](../docs/maintain/).
Libreboot's policy is to provide as much software freedom as possible to each
user, on each and every bit of hardware supported, and to *support as much
hardware from coreboot as is feasible*. The *goal* of Libreboot is
to do exactly this, and help as many people as possible by automating the
configuration, compilation and installation of *coreboot* for *non-technical*
users, easing it further for the average user by providing user-friendly
instructions for everything. Essentially, Libreboot is a *coreboot distrubion*,
in much the same way *Alpine Linux* is a Linux distribution!
This policy change was implemented, by *merging* osboot with Libreboot. The
osboot project was a fork of Libreboot lead by the same founder, Leah Rowe, and
initially maintained in parallel with Libreboot. *On November 15th, 2022, the
two projects merged into a single project, continuing under the Libreboot
banner. The osboot project existed between December 2020 (as retroboot, months
later renamed to osboot) and November 2022; osboot has been assimilated by
Libreboot!*
**Freedom is very much preferable and a world where everyone can use Free
Software, exclusively, is to be welcomed. However, we do not yet live in that
world.**
The libreboot position is more like an opinion, as opposed to an actual policy.
That opinion is this: *some* freedom is better than *zero* freedom. There are
plenty of people with coreboot-compatible hardware, who wish to move away from
otherwise fully proprietary boot firmware (usually supplied by the manufacturer
of the hardware). The libreboot project is here to help! It provides a fully
automated build system, making coreboot much easier to use, and it provides
user-friendly [installation guides](../docs/install/) to help you get started.
Supporting more hardware, even if the hardware is less
friendly to software freedom, will provide a path towards coreboot for more
people, and it may lead to more coreboot development in the future.
Freedom is still the ultimate goal, and *coreboot* provides a lot more freedom
to the user compared to fully proprietary vendor firmware. Making coreboot
easier to use is a noble goal, and the result is that more people can achieve
a level of computing freedom that they would otherwise not have.
The following diagram shall set the tone for the rest of this article:
<img tabindex=1 src="https://av.libreboot.org/firmware.png" /><span class="f"><img src="https://av.libreboot.org/firmware.png" /></span>
The purpose of this document it to outline how that is brought about, and how
the project operates along this basis. *This* document is largely about the
ideology and it is therefore (mostly) non-technical; for technical information,
you can refer to the [Libreboot build system documentation](../docs/maintain/).
Current project scope
=====================
@ -66,7 +37,8 @@ Most critical of these are:
* Intel Management Engine / AMD PSP firmware
Specific binary blobs are also problematic, on most coreboot systems, but they
differ per machine.
differ per machine. Read more on the FAQ, and on this page, for how we deal
with binary blobs in the Libreboot project.
For information about Intel Management Engine and AMD PSP, refer to the FAQ.
@ -76,6 +48,16 @@ Blob *minimalization* policy
Default configurations
----------------------
Coreboot, upon which Libreboot is based, is mostly libre software but does
require binary blobs on some platforms. A most common example might be raminit
(memory controller initialisation) or video framebuffer initialisation. The
coreboot firmware uses binary blobs for some of these tasks, on some mainboards,
but some mainboards from coreboot can be initialised with 100% libre source
code, which you can inspect, and compile for your use.
Libreboot deals with this situation in a *strict* and *principled* way. The
nature of this is what you're about to read.
The libreboot project has the following policy:
* If a blob *can* be avoided, it should be avoided. For example, if VGA ROM
@ -277,6 +259,8 @@ not to list all of them (otherwise, a book could be written on the subject).
Problems with FSDG
------------------
<img tabindex=1 src="https://av.libreboot.org/firmware.png" /><span class="f"><img src="https://av.libreboot.org/firmware.png" /></span>
The FSDG criteria is separate from RYF, but has similar problems. FSDG is
what the FSF-endorsed GNU+Linux distros comply with. Thoughts: