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When you said they want "freedom" I assumed you meant in the context of software, i.e. Free Software ... I guess you meant something else.

Today you have hardware that respects your freedom and free distros to choose from. You aren't facing the same situation RMS did when he started GNU. You're not acknowledging this enormous difference. Also, the GNU GPL v2 (a license the FSF wrote and RMS is a chief author of) doesn't "allow" proprietary software drivers into the Linux kernel. Allowing that is a choice of Linux kernel copyright holders who don't sue, encourage other Linux kernel copyright holders not to sue, or pass on copies of that variant of the Linux kernel with the proprietary software intact. No license can do any better because copyright holders always have the final say on whom they'll choose to sue.

Again it's GNU that has a solution to this (which you also don't acknowledge): GNU Linux-libre—a variant of the Linux kernel with the non-free software removed. This project and the essay that started this /. thread fully acknowledge that GNU Linux-libre won't run on all of the hardware Torvalds' variant of the Linux kernel will run on. But that's not the point; the point is keeping users in control of their computers, respecting their software freedom, and showing that one can do computing with a fully-free system running on fully-free hardware. The FSF doesn't "allow binary blobs to be a part of an OS", some distributors of GNU/Linux do that. No FSF-approved free distro includes non-free software and the free distro guidelines go beyond that to push for pointing to only free software. The user is free to add non-free software and/or repos to their system if they wish but an FSF-approved distro won't do that by default.

You claim "the free-software revolution is stalled" but offer no evidence to support the claim. It seems you overlook what the FSF is doing to promote software freedom and misstate the responsibility the FSF has for the Linux kernel project as a whole.

Indeed, the lead section of FSF's directory of free software for Windows takes a pragmatic approach by replacing pieces of the Windows user space with free software one at a time in order to make the transition to X11/Linux less abrupt.

Here is a list of popular free software applications that run on Microsoft Windows — along with the proprietary applications they replace. If you are still a Windows user, you can take a first step towards free software by installing these applications.

[Spiel about freedom, not price, the opportunity to others to fix free software that you use, and Windows being an example of user subjugation]

Using free software on Microsoft Windows (or any nonfree operating system) is the first step towards freedom, but it does not get you all the way there. You're still under Microsoft's power as long as you use Windows.

However, on this page we're concerned with the first step.

You could always use LibreJS's whitelist feature on irs.gov (or whatever the site is).

Zealots would claim: "If you've whitelisted one site, you've failed."

And you are still allowed to petition your government for redress of grievances by snail mail, email and twitter which I believe still has a JS-free interface.

During some calls for public comment, the US government has outright stated that it will refuse to consider any comment submitted through snail mail or email. In one case, the US Copyright Office stated, and I quote, that it "cannot allow submission of comments outside the regulations.gov system on the basis of your objection to the use of proprietary software."

Not unless he got a sex change and changed his name to Molly

Typically reiterating the Free Software Foundation (from 2010) or Richard Stallman's sentiments (dating back to 2011 and revised as news is published) doesn't go over well on corporate media tech sites. And then bad things happen and people eventually come around to realizing that the more principled approach (and attendant conclusions) was foreseen years ago.

No mention of what System76 considers an Open Source computer.

Precisely; and that's a big part of the problem with marketing terms—they are designed to tell you nothing substantive. This seems particularly useless when pitching a computer for sale (pre-orders are said to be on offer in October) and speaking to what is likely a technically literate audience that values being in control of their own computers. I know what features I'd want in a modern, powerful computer but I can't begin to evaluate if this computer is worth considering.

The Free Software Foundation (FSF) put together criteria by which hardware ought to be evaluated however this organization predates the development methodology brought up by the term "open source" by over a decade. The FSF has a history of doing work with published, carefully structured definitions (such as their list of "Words to Avoid (or Use with Care) Because They Are Loaded or Confusing") based on critical thinking about relevant technological and social issues. For example, the FSF doesn't want to be lumped in with "open source" because they stand for different values.

I'd like to see this new system be evaluated for the Respects Your Freedom campaign; I'd find that useful information to help me determine whether I should order one of these computers. But right now all I see are vague terms and an ad campaign that doesn't illuminate what's really going on offer.

How is [console lock-in] different from being locked into windows?

Consider two differences between a PC running Windows and an Xbox One running the Windows 10-derived Xbox One system software:

In exchange for this lock-in, consoles offer alleged ease of use.

They don't care whether the ARM chips would have been better or not. Letting Microsoft choose ARM chips would be an admission of defeat.

Better for whom? Better for what? "Better" is vague and needs explication to understand whose perspective is being used for comparison. This story only comes up because Microsoft Windows is proprietary (nonfree, user-subjugating) software; only Microsoft can legally inspect, modify, and share that OS so only Microsoft controls on which architectures it runs. That's not in the user's interests at all. Users are not well served because of a direct and intentional effect of monopoly control inherent in all proprietary software. Microsoft is thus a symptom of a much larger and more pernicious problem—a lack of software freedom.

The cure is software freedom. Free software—software users are free to run, inspect, share, and modify—can and are ported to any architecture users want to use. We already have GNU/Linux running on ARM-designed chipsets and chipsets where the user gets completely free software firmware such as the high-end POWER systems and older Intel systems that don't have their backdoor (pitched as a sysadmin convenience). From software freedom one gets the freedom to meaningfully vet, improve, and distribute the software while running the improved software the whole time. That's worth paying extra for, that's worth abandoning vendors like Intel and AMD who apparently don't agree, and anyone who actually believes in the inherently undemocratic "voting with one's dollar" line (where wealthy people get more "votes" than poor people) will pick free systems such as the systems featured in the FSF's Respects Your Freedom campaign.

If you are an outlook user, compared to a Thunderbird what are you getting that is going to make you drop it in awe of the other client?

Lately, a lot of people tell me that they plan to switch from Windows to X11/Linux sometime between now and January 2020 when security updates for Windows 7 end. To make the transition smoother, one might consider switching in advance to free software available for both platforms. For example, one might switch early from Microsoft Office to LibreOffice, from Edge to Firefox, and from Outlook to Thunderbird, as a way to minimize the study gradient of learning X11/Linux once the time comes. Even the Free Software Foundation recognizes that switching to free applications is a good first step.

The move comes months after Musk said Zuckerberg's understanding of AI was limited.

But Mark Zuckerberg was Time magazine's "Person of the Year"!

Objecting to Facebook on the basis of surveillance? That's hardly new. Software freedom fighters got there years ago.

Free Software Foundation got there earlier. From publishing https://www.fsf.org/facebook published on on Dec 20, 2010. FSF & GNU Project founder Richard Stallman has been rightly objecting to Facebook for years in his talks and on his personal website.

Long-time former FSF lawyer Eben Moglen rightly called Facebook a monstrous surveillance engine in talks and he pointed out the ugliness of Facebook's endless surveillance (at length in part 3 but in other places in the same lecture series as well). See http://snowdenandthefuture.info/ for the entire series of talks.

[ASUS T100TA] Which laptop or detachable with a 10 to 11.6 inch display do you recommend

The FSF has a list of computers they recommend. There's also a list of hardware which needs no binary blob.

Which pocket computer with WLAN and cellular voice and data communication capability do you recommend for use without proprietary binary blobs

There is none on the market. I wrote "when alternatives exist", I never meant that there were alternatives to all proprietary blobbed hardware, that'd be preposterous, as there's blobs in cars, televisions, IoT, etc.

Apple publishes enough information about I/O Kit to allow peripheral manufacturers to port drivers to macOS. Thus I would instead place blame on peripheral manufacturers

I think it can be stated that Linux has all needed information for anyone to write a driver, more so than Apple. Buying hardware that has no free driver is just helping the proprietary blob model.

Two things you need to understand about the Free Software Foundation is the definition of free software and the fact that they encourage everybody to profit by selling free software.

BSD takes issue with how restrictive a the FSF GNU license is.

Two things you need to understand about the Free Software Foundation is the definition of free software and the fact that they encourage everybody to profit by selling free software.

We greatly regret this error and we apologize to all Mac users, both for releasing with this vulnerability and for the concern it has caused. Our customers deserve better...

But don't be fooled: one thing Apple remains firm on—Apple's customers don't deserve software freedom. Apple will continue to pursue its walled garden, ever restrictive practices built around DRM, proprietary software, app store censorship, and so on (see more about how Apple's malware adversely affects its users). The latest insecurity should not be taken as a sign that Apple's users deserve to fully own their computers. Apple will remain firmly in control over their users no matter how capable or willing they may be to want to run, inspect, modify the software, or share improvements to help make things better for their fellow Apple users. I'd like to be able to say to users: pay more for Apple because they sell you software freedom and that deserves extra money to help keep them in business treating you, the prospective computer owner, right. But I can't say that about Apple, so I recommend that you take your business elsewhere and do business with other distributors.

I like how Motorola went after Samsung: The question is not whether you should switch to Android, but which Android device to choose. But while we're talking about phones, the Free Software Foundation has some interesting iPhone facts on this page.

Easier to give you a list of hardware that is not affected. A good place to start is the FSF's Respects Your Freedom list.

You'll notice that this list doesn't contain anything with an Intel processor manufactured after around (I think) 2008.

Although there have been efforts to "disable" the ME in newer systems, by removing most of its firmware, I'd still be hesitant to trust any of them unless and until the complete source code for the remaining firmware is released (or reverse-engineered.)

Not saying I agree with what you are saying but I would rather drink a poison of an American corporation (I am American) than the Russian government/hackers anyday. ... actually to give me a +mod 5 Linux would be the best way but even Ubuntu was caught doing telemetry. Yes, I am using Chrome too typing this but no other good modern browser exists so what choice do I have?

But in the real world I want a usable desktop and be able to edit my resume and work on spreadsheets that look the same on my bosses Windows based PC. That means Windows like many users.

Man things are depressing these days.

Apple's users need to declare their independence from dependence on Apple and switch to free software OSes running on hardware they own. The same is true for independence from any proprietor.

You will never get the control over your own damn equipment you seek so long as you do business with proprietors (Apple, Google, Microsoft, etc.). Like I've said so many times before on /., the themes of the articles here are the same and so are the fixes you can implement today: software freedom is a good unto itself because it helps grant you the independence and true ownership you seek, running free software on hardware you can fully own is the best currently viable way to get the independence you seek. The rest is a matter of political will—are you willing to change your system and hardware so you can have the best available hardware and software that respects your freedom? Wishing and hoping achieve nothing, real change requires political action.

I recommend perusing the GNU Project's list of free distros and the Free Software Foundation's "Respects Your Freedom" hardware list.

It's an Intel processor, why can't you put Linux on it? Will Linux not support the Surface hardware?

"Restricted Boot" is a term used by the Free Software Foundation to refer to UEFI Secure Boot shipped in a configuration that a PC's owner cannot disable or customize. A PC with Restricted Boot will refuse to even load GRUB.

The terms under which Microsoft licensed Windows RT to OEMs required devices to use Restricted Boot. Windows 10 S is seen as a spiritual successor to Windows RT because like Windows RT, Windows 10 S can run only applications from Windows Store. I haven't tried any Windows 10 S devices myself, but I'd be surprised if Microsoft allowed GNU/Linux to boot on a PC that ships with Windows 10 S, as opposed to having to pay $50 for an upgrade to Windows 10 Pro to use WSL.

Even the third-party solutions that aim to turn this spying off aren't 100-percent successful.

Of course they're not. The proprietor determines how successful anyone's programs will be because with proprietary software the proprietor sets the rules. "Turning off" spying for proprietary software means nothing no matter what a GUI, configuration changes, or some admin tells you because none of these things can compete with the degree of control the proprietor has over the program or (in the case of proprietary OSes like Windows and MacOS) the system. One who uses such a system expecting privacy controls to respect the user's wishes is fighting a fight they cannot win, by design. That is the nature of proprietary (non-free, user-subjugating) software.

Therefore the decision has to be made: proprietors push you to consider what you really want. Do you want the freedoms of free software even if that means lacking some of the conveniences proprietary software ostensibly offers (some of those conveniences are genuine and robustly implemented but come with a heavy price of non-freedom, some of those conveniences are completely illusory and traps for people who write from the quoted perspective above like DRM)? Free software (software users are free to run, inspect, share, and modify) is available and meets a lot of modern needs even on older hardware that doesn't contain backdoors like the Intel AMT. Arguments against software freedom invariably come from those prioritizing convenience over the privacy users say they want (including standing by such speech by "jailbreaking" their phones; a telling word about the default status of the phone's user).

I think it's a service to ship products known to work with fully-free OSes (such as the OSes the FSF points us to) right out of the box, and comes with free software installed (such as a free BIOS with no blobs). Even merely identifying which hardware will work with a fully-free system is doing us a favor; I've certainly appreciated this investigative effort for routers and desktop computers. I also think it's a service to do this with more hardware than was offered before; not just laptops but systems capable of being reasonably adequate desktop and speedy multi-core server systems which really work for many modern uses (the FSF's servers are such systems, for instance, as they show these systems can do real-world service and workstation jobs). When John Sullivan said "Users now have more options than ever when it comes to hardware they can trust" he was right. Finally, other distributors have done this before and I'm glad to see more distributors do the same even if they're distributing more of the same hardware we already knew would respect our software freedom. To say these organizations offer nothing of value strikes me as unfair to what they're offering and the work involved in providing the service commercially. Ultimately that's an example of what I explained in my parent post about eschewing software freedom for its own sake.

It's a shame that software freedom isn't the norm: one can't be sure a free BIOS, for instance, will work on a newer system, or that the system doesn't come with backdoors advertised as sysadmin conveniences (like Intel's AMT). There's still more work to be done on software freedom, more firmware to be understood and freed, more hardware that needs free software drivers. I'm guessing that work will be done by people who do the tough investigative work and take the risks of offering liberated hardware for sale, not by those who think nothing of value has been added.

The old wipe-and-Linux won't work if Windows 10 S devices come with Restricted Boot, which means UEFI Secure Boot that a device's owner cannot reconfigure. Microsoft licensed Windows RT only to OEMs who promised to configure all Windows RT devices with Restricted Boot.

Even without Restricted Boot, wipe-and-Linux will fail if manufacturers of components of said devices fail to cooperate with driver developers. You'll likely end up with unaccelerated graphics, no audio, no network, and no suspend.

The fact is, however, that you still want to go on Netflix and watch your programs

No, you would want to cancel Netflix, forgo its exclusive programs, and watch different programs that do not use digital restrictions management.

log into your bank account, buy stuff on Amazon

Which can in theory be done mostly server-side, with the client touching only HTTP, TLS, HTML, and CSS, not the larger attack surface of JavaScript or WebAssembly. Worse comes to worst, it could be done with an even smaller client attack surface over SSH, just as online banking and shopping used to be done over dial-up with a terminal emulator back when CompuServe was still hot $#!+.

You think that you can bring all this stuff back to plain HTML, and - what? - Perl on the CGI backend of a server and be immune? We thought that 20 years ago, it didn't work out.

It doesn't have to be Perl; it can be something more "modern" like Python or Java or C# or Go or whatever. But some see value in containing the attack surface on the server side rather than expanding it to the client.

At some point you have to take user input, or input from a remote website, and interpret it in a way that cannot possibly be compromised while letting the user accomplish what they want to

The server needs to authoritatively validate the user's input anyway. Why require the client to download code that only expands the attack surface while duplicating the validation effort?

Creative Commons? Free Software? Never heard of them? Small wonder this happens with people like you wallowing in the inevitability of being a slave to corporate computing. There are genuinely things you can do *NOW*:

Support creative commons works instead of Hollywood trash.
Support the FSF
Contribute to the Linux Foundation Support Open Education and OpenCourseWare.

All I ever see here is whining about, and then ultimately pandering to, Hollywood, code.org, Microsoft, etc. For all the comments on stories about Windows it seems a great many of you enjoy being Microsoft's whipping boy by using and supporting Windows (even after Microsoft's many many indiscretions, if they really bother you then stop using it, otherwise STFU) and a lack of support for CC material while you're a slave to Hollywood garbage proves that it's enough for you to complain about it as a means to justify you then rolling over and taking whatever they shove in you.

What we really want people to do is drop the trojan/boated Windows 10 and starting using ElementaryOS or Linux Mint. It's so easy to do folks

It's easy provided that the PC you own 1. allows customizing Secure Boot and 2. is compatible with Linux drivers.

Only PCs shipped with Windows 8 or earlier are required to allow the owner of a PC to disable or customize UEFI's Secure Boot feature. On PCs shipped with Windows 10, the PC maker can choose to make Secure Boot either open or closed. (The FSF uses the term Restricted Boot to refer to Secure Boot that the PC's owner cannot control.) I haven't tried a Windows 10 S device myself, but imagine that all such devices have Restricted Boot, just as all Windows RT tablets had Restricted Boot. Someone stuck with a device with Restricted Boot will have to buy a new PC.

And even if a PC does boot non-Microsoft operating systems, I've seen cases where one or more of WLAN, Bluetooth, audio, and suspend is broken under Linux. Someone who spends several gigabytes of monthly data transfer quota to download a Live USB distribution only to discover that Linux cannot use essential features of his PC chipset will have to buy a new PC.

No, Intel AMT runs completely independently of the operating system. It doesn't matter whether the operating system is Windows, Linux, BSD, or anything else.

In fact, it's even worse. Intel AMT can still be running while the computer is off (but still plugged in). See

https://fsf.org/blogs/community/active-management-technology

Let me say it again: your computer can be pwned while it's off! You don't need to have anything running at all, because Intel AMT keeps running in the background as long as the machine is plugged in.

The "guard dogs" were proprietary programs. Users of proprietary OSes (chiefly MacOS and Windows) were trusting one black box to "guard" against the ills of other black boxes (other likely proprietary programs running on the same system). This was always known to be foolish and this WikiLeaks release shows another indisputable example how this system is broken by design.

Software freedom (the freedom to run, share, inspect, and modify) is no guarantee against malware, life offers no such guarantees. As with other endeavors we can act to improve the odds in our favor for computers we own so we don't fall prey to the ills of proprietary software. We know that keeping secrets from computer users prevents them from controlling their own computers (this is the power of a proprietor and why proprietary software is released). When we have software freedom we increase the odds skilled software practitioners will identify malware, change the software to excise the malware, and release the improved software. One could even hire someone's skill and time to do this on their behalf.

But no such inspection, improvement, and release is legally permitted with proprietary software. Thus most computer users fall prey not only to the traps of proprietary software itself, but also to the traps built into the software, and the traps of the software ostensibly meant to guard from the ills of other malware. There's no good reason to have faith in one black box over another, trust that one black box will keep you safe while another is less trustworthy, or to continue choosing one master over another. It's easy, convenient, and untrustworthy to do as the proprietors want you to do. You can choose software freedom and invest in businesses working to provide you with practical hardware to make this an everyday reality that meets your computing needs. The Free Software Foundation's "Respects Your Freedom" list includes a high-powered X86 64-bit mainboard called the "Vikings D16 Mainboard" which looks particularly appealing for high-powered, high RAM ceiling systems. WikiLeaks continues to tell us all why we need hardware and software we can trust, software that respects our freedom—we see the consequences of not having trustworthy systems! We can choose to value software freedom for its own sake and we should. Investing in our own future in this way now portends big practical payoffs in the near and long-term future.

Intel CPU Backdoor Report (Updated Mar 13, 2017)

The goal of this report is to make the existence of Intel CPU backdoors a common knowledge and provide information on backdoor removal.

What we know about Intel CPU backdoors so far:

TL;DR version

Your Intel CPU and Chipset is running a backdoor as we speak.

The backdoor hardware is inside the CPU/Bridge and the backdoor firmware (Intel Management Engine) is in the chipset flash memory.

30C3 Intel ME live hack:
@21m43s, keystrokes leaked from Intel ME above the OS, wireshark failed to detect packets.
[Video Link] 30C3: Persistent, Stealthy, Remote-controlled Dedicated Hardware Malware
[Quotes] Vortrag:
"DAGGER exploits Intel's Manageability Engine (ME), that executes firmware code such as Intel's Active Management Technology (iAMT), as well as its OOB network channel."

"the ME provides a perfect environment for undetectable sensitive data leakage on behalf of the attacker."

"We have recently improved DAGGER's capabilites to include support for 64-bit operating systems and a stealthy update mechanism to download new attack code."

"To be more precise, we show how to conduct a DMA attack using Intel's Manageability Engine (ME)."

"We can permanently monitor the keyboard buffer on both operating system targets."

Quotes on Intel backdoors:

A message from RMS
by Richard Stallman on Dec 29, 2016 09:45 AM

The current generation of Intel and AMD processor chips are designed with vicious back doors that users cannot shut off. (In Intel processors, it's the "management engine".)

No users should trust those processors.

Backdoor removal:
The backdoor firmware can be removed by following this guide using the me_cleaner script.
Removal requires a Raspberry Pi (with GPIO pins) and a SOIC clip.

Decoding Intel backdoors:
The situation is out of control and the Libreboot/Coreboot community is looking for BIOS/Firmware experts to help with the Intel ME decoding effort.

If you are skilled in these areas, download Intel ME firmwares from this collection and have a go at them, beware Intel is using a lot of counter measures to prevent their backdoors from being decoded (explained below).

Useful links:
The Intel ME subsystem can take over your machine, can't be audited
REcon 2014 - Intel Management Engine Secrets
Untrusting the CPU (33c3)
Towards (reasonably) trustworthy x86 laptops
30C3 To Protect And Infect - The militarization of the Internet
30c3: To Protect And Infect Part 2 - Mass Surveillance Tools & Software

1. Introduction, what is Intel ME

Short version, from Intel staff:

Re: What Intel CPUs lack Intel ME secondary processor?
Amy_Intel Feb 8, 2016 9:27 AM

The Management Engine (ME) is an isolated and p

We can just boycott pages that require connections to Google in order to work properly.

Until your national government requires connection to Google in order to exercise the rights of a citizen, such as submitting comments on proposed regulations. It has happened recently; see the Free Software Foundation's 2016 letter to U.S. Copyright Office.

Whatever happened to you happened because the owner of the site chose to use ReCaptcha as a tool to prevent bots. You have no right to insist that a particular website cater a particular user experience to you -- if you don't like it, you can go elsewhere.

What you said applies when a private sector business in a competitive market requires solving a reCAPTCHA challenge or running other proprietary scripts as a condition of accessing a luxury. I don't find it so defensible when a private sector monopolist or even a government requires doing so as a condition of accessing a necessity, as the United States Copyright Office required last year.

"Doing so would make apps like Signal, Telegram and WhatsApp entirely insecure" is what makes running security-minded programs on non-free, user-subjugating, always-untrustworthy, proprietary OSes a joke. People get a sense that they're safer from malware then they really are and they think they get to keep their proprietary conveniences as well. Openwashing will not help you.

I know it's a lot of work to learn new things and change your views and your behavior. I understand that software freedom is differently political than what you're encouraged to adopt, and software freedom requires you to consider more than what's listed in virtually every features & money-based ad campaign from monied proprietors. And I get that coming to terms with the consequences of software freedom runs directly contrary to believing that you don't need to think any further than what proprietors and their "open source" friends tell you to think about (because no proprietor frames their offerings in terms of the freedoms to run, inspect, share, and modify the software, hence proprietors are more likely to sanction the open source movement which eschews these values and even celebrates partnering with proprietors like Red Hat's recent uncritical commentary on Microsoft's software and Microsoft's new campaign regarding "Linux"—no mention of GNU which might bring software freedom to mind). But in the real world you need to stop trusting proprietary systems to keep you safe, respect your privacy, or other practical consequences of software freedom. Proprietary software wasn't designed to do that and therefore that software never will do that job. There is no middle ground which allows you to run proprietary software while retaining the benefits of software freedom. It's time to value software freedom for its own sake.

Even if all published software were free, exploits like these are possible because all complex software has bugs. Perfect security is not the issue. The issue is who gets to control their own computer and how we treat each other. Even after these exploits are published by WikiLeaks and people have had time to consider them and protect against their adverse effects, proprietors will still have power over users who run their proprietary software. Users won't be able to tell what other exploits are out there and therefore it will be harder to protect against them. The difference between proprietary subjugation and software freedom becomes more clear: Free software users will be able to run, inspect, improve, and share improvements with others making that software more able to prevent future attacks. But proprietary software users won't be allowed to do the due diligence they need in order to help themselves no matter how technically skilled they are or how willing to repair things they are. No computer user deserves to be treated that way. It will take a lot of work to get people to understand why they too should care about software freedom even if they're non-technical (like most computer users are). So I urge you to understand software freedom for its own sake and to try to help others understand as well.

Relatedly, the Free Software Foundation's "Respects Your Freedom" campaign has some new hardware on the list. I recommend buying some and using it, even if it's not up-to-date with the latest capabilities and seemingly expensive for what's offered. We need more people to invest in free replacements for proprietary, locked-down, user-subjugating systems. We need to make investments in our own collective future by funding the free products available today so we can have modern, highly-capable, and fully user-controllable POWER8, RISC, etc. systems which will respect the owner's control.

A beginning is a very delicate time. Know then, that is is the year 1997. The known universe is ruled by the Padishah Emperor Bill Gates, my father. In this time, the most precious substance in the universe is code. The code extends life. The code expands consciousness. The code is vital to the internet. The Microsoft Corporation and its engineers, who the code has mutated over 22 years, use the code, which gives them the ability to dominate the market place. That is, rule the mindshare without moving. Because the Microsoft Corporation controls the default operating system, they are the highest power in the Universe. The Code also plays a very secret role in the Open Source community, of which I am a part. The open source community has been interfering with the proprietary code, and the corporations producing it thereof, of the great Internet of the Universe, cleverly replacing proprietary code with open source to form the FOSS, a super being. They plan to control this super being and use its powers for their own purposes. The coding plan has been carried out in a strict manner since the GNU project in 1984. The goal of the super being is in sight. But now, so close to the prize, a crazy student, Linus, the bound debtor of the University of Helsinki, who has been ordered to bear only proprietary code, has given birth to a kernal. Oh, yes. I forgot to tell you. The code exists all over the entire Internet. Hidden away within the rocks of this vast network are a people known as the Free Software Foundation, who have long held a prophecy that a man would come, a messiah, who would lead them to true freedom. The URL is https://www.fsf.org/, also known as FSF.

Ring.cx is a videochat app that puts user privacy and freedom 1st place. By design, there is no big brother, no middleman, no trust problem. Ring leverages the same architecture as bittorrent (DHT), a decentralized network to connect peers. From there, all communication is encrypted peer-to-peer. Best of all, it's free software, backed up by the Free Software Foundation: https://directory.fsf.org/wiki... More at https://ring.cx/ Check the team's recent talk at FOSDEM: http://ftp.fau.de/fosdem/2017/...

The only way to get real and full control over your computer is to run nothing but free software. Free (as in freedom) software gives you the freedom to choose what you run, and to alter how the software behaves if you find you don't agree with what it does. No proprietor offers that as a choice. I suggest considering a computer recommended by the "Respects Your Freedom" campaign and other computers in which you can run fully-free OSes and free firmware (there are modern POWER8 and Intel-compatible systems to do this as well as older lower-end hardware).

As to Microsoft in particular, this story effectively comes to nothing. You'd have to be quite naive to believe that a proprietor will give up its power over the user to not have some way to make their system run what the proprietor wants. If Microsoft ever claims they don't have such backdoor access to Windows systems, keep in mind there's no way to verify that no such backdoors exist or fix them if they're later discovered. Microsoft has an ugly history (some of which the public knows about in the Windows 10 software that was forced on some users at various points) which should prevent anyone from believing them. This whole story is nothing but a PR move trying to make Microsoft look better in light of Windows users apparently rejecting Windows 10 and sharing information about times when Windows 10 was forcibly and immediately imposed. The tech press is so thoroughly corporate now you'll find sycophants saying otherwise but they can't talk away the lack of software freedom that forms the basis of a proprietor's power over their users.

Thanks for referring to the discussions that occurred when this first became public. The mailing list discussions and changes in the FSF's website make it clear that Leah Rowe is arguing on behalf of someone else—a former FSF employee whose identity was revealed when their bio was removed from the FSF Staff and Board webpage. The Libreboot project has not been "stolen" from the community as anyone is free to copy the project (before or after leaving the GNU Project) and develop the code further. That is why this is not a loss for software freedom, Libreboot users, or anyone who wishes to continue development (even continuing under the GNU Project again). This freedom is part of what makes free software so great and worth celebrating for its own sake. Only proprietary software really ends up becoming truly inactive because nobody but the proprietor is allowed to develop that code further.

One note on the reddit.org discussion pointed to in one of the links: poster "jammer170" claims:

Not "more free", but "more open". Stripping out binary blobs is important in the open source movement.

But that's almost exactly backwards; that assessment is woefully mistaken about the difference between the older free software movement (which objects on ethical grounds to proprietary software) and open source (a development methodology and right-wing friend of proprietors which finds it more convenient to help developers by sharing software development work but doesn't seriously object to proprietary software). This distinction is relevant to understand why Libreboot exists: Libreboot is a fully-free fork of Coreboot just as GNU Linux-libre is a fully-free fork of the Linux kernel. Both Coreboot and the Linux kernel contain non-free software in them. Both Libreboot and GNU Linux-libre projects inherit code from upstream and remove the non-free blobs (plus possibly make some other modifications beyond the scope of this point) and then distribute completely free software variants of their upstream projects. Thus GNU Linux-libre and Libreboot might not be able to run on all of the hardware their upstream projects run on but what systems can run either Libreboot and/or GNU Linux-libre are doing the jobs those programs do with free software.

This reddit.org discussion is not well sourced on this point, jammer170 makes the aforementioned points with no pointers to help readers understand this distinction nor why this distinction matters. The FSF has published essays (old, new) to explain why free software matters, why the open source movement eschews software freedom, and Richard Stallman devotes a section of his talks to clearly explaining the difference between the philosophies of the free software movement and open source including how those different philosophies play out in practical terms on the ground. Usually that difference comes down to free software activists taking steps to ensure software freedom while open source enthusiasts go along with whatever a proprietor requests.

To be far, the FSF did issue a public statement: https://www.fsf.org/news/free-software-foundation-statement

Although it is our usual policy not to comment publicly on internal personnel matters for privacy reasons, we felt it necessary to state unequivocally that the allegations made in that email are untrue.

I doubt there are more than a handful of people on Slashdot (since we know FSF folks do hang out here) who know the actual truth of the matter. Given that, this is purely a he/she/xe said situation.

For me, I'm taking the accuser's story it with a grain of salt.

You can't whitelist everything you need to, and you can't trust end users to be able to do that all themselves (no matter how many dialogs you pop up). A/V is only capable of doing so much, so users still need educations.

The other option, as this Google engineer proposes, is to lock everything down and only allow vetted programs. This is called Trusted Computing (a.k.a. Treacherous Computing) for software and digital rights management (digital restrictions management) for media. These are very secure (so long as you trust the vetting agency), but they promote too much vendor lock-in and they directly combat Free Software.

Eben is not the FSF's lawyer:

https://www.fsf.org/news/fsf-a...

https://www.fsf.org/licensing/...

The printed comment and list of signatories was rejected by the US Copyright Office back in March because they wanted it to be submitted digitally via their website. However, because the website's submission page contains proprietary javascript, the FSF rejected that as a means to deliver their comment. The news here is that the USCO finally decided to accept the FSF position paper in printed form.

Why am I having to read a TorrentFreak article on this? Why is there no mention of it on either http://www.fsf.org/ nor http://defectivebydesign.org/? I don't want to link to TorrentFreak when I share this, nor do I want to link to an obscure PDF file for the original source. It really seems like they should be promoting this on their own site!

The news is that the FSF's opinion has been included in the comments published by the United States Copyright Office from its public consultation about this issue. There was uncertainty as to whether the Copyright Office would accept FSF's submission, as electronic submission required use of proprietary software written in JavaScript, and there was no option for postal submission. So FSF had to hand-deliver its comments to the Copyright Office in Washington, DC, in person.

The news is that the FSF's opinion has been included in the comments published by the United States Copyright Office from its public consultation about this issue. There was uncertainty as to whether the Copyright Office would accept FSF's submission, as electronic submission required use of proprietary software written in JavaScript, and there was no option for postal submission. So FSF had to hand-deliver its comments to the Copyright Office in Washington, DC, in person.

Thats why projects like the Lemote Yeeloong laptop got interest. Been understood down to the hardware level was very important e.g. building on a a free software boot loader.
Free software laptops (Dec 18, 2009)
https://www.fsf.org/bulletin/2...

Blob free arm boards, not yet https://www.fsf.org/resources/... , but there will be soon https://www.fsf.org/blogs/lice... . Actually a few can be run blob free if you don't mind sacrificing some features.

Blob free arm boards, not yet https://www.fsf.org/resources/... , but there will be soon https://www.fsf.org/blogs/lice... . Actually a few can be run blob free if you don't mind sacrificing some features.

Probably interesting for many folks around here... there are plans to submit these projects for the Free Software Foundation's Respects Your Freedom program (contacts already started).

If you disable JavaScript, you can no longer run web applications. Instead, you'll be limited to running only native applications made for your particular operating system. Want to use an app on your Windows PC, but it was made for a Mac? Too bad. Want to use an app on your Mac, but it was made for a Windows PC? Too bad.

If you disable JavaScript, you can no longer petition the government for the redress of grievances.

The only non-free part is now the Javascript running in my browser

Even that would be enough for some FSF ad campaign to say "Say No to Skype". FSF is already doing that against GitHub and SourceForge. FSF gives them an F in support for free software principles because critical features are broken without running proprietary script. GitLab gets a C because it requires manual whitelisting in the tool that allows only free scripts to execute and encourages bad license choices (such as "look but don't touch" and not specifying a license version).