Shuttleworth Wants To Get Rid of Proprietary Firmware

Posted by samzenpus on Monday March 17, 2014 @06:39AM from the change-your-ways dept.

jones_supa writes "In a new blog post, the Ubuntu main man Mark Shuttleworth calls for an end to proprietary firmwares such as ACPI. His reasoning is that running any firmware code on your phone, tablet, PC, TV, wifi router, washing machine, server, or the server running the cloud your SAAS app is running on, is a threat vector against you, and NSA's best friend. 'Arguing for ACPI on your next-generation device is arguing for a trojan horse of monumental proportions to be installed in your living room and in your data center. I've been to Troy, there is not much left.' As better solutions, Shuttleworth suggests delivering your innovative code directly to the upstream kernel, or using declarative firmware that describes hardware linkages and dependencies but doesn't include executable code."

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Re:Precisely how... by TechyImmigrant · 2014-03-17 06:56 · Score: 5, Insightful

I design hardware. I could wait for someone to accept my changes into the Linux Kernel before I start testing it, or I could write some firmware accessible through ACPI.
What Shutters wants is irrelevant. What he needs is open interface specifications to the hardware.

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I should use this sig to advertise my book ISBN-13 : 978-1501515132.
What RMS has been saying all along. by Anonymous Coward · 2014-03-17 06:57 · Score: 5, Insightful

So people are just now figuring out that o'l fatty hippy beard Richard Stallman was right all along?
Color me fucking surprised! Any code you can't see can and will be used against you.
RMS says things that are uncomfortable and difficult but painfully true. Don't mistake is disinterest in your feelings (Or business model) as hostility.