libre.computer do they sell computers which can run entirely on free software?
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Their website says: with minimal proprietary firmware. Is any libre computer able to run on entirely free software? If a given libre computer device requires non free software in order to work, will the computer run if you do not install the non free piece of software in question? Thank you.
https://libre.computer says that:
Every Libre Computer board runs on the mainline Linux kernel and upstream U-Boot with minimal proprietary firmware
Unfortunately, the so-called "mainline Linux kernel" includes the linux-firmware repository, full of proprietary firmware. GNUser may know whether some of the Libre Computer boards mostly work in absence of proprietary firmware. He voiced concerns regarding the way Libre Computer builds its bootloaders and distributions: https://hub.libre.computer/t/source-code-git-repository-for-bootloaders-and-firmwares/2743
Wow, that was something. I had totally forgotten about that whole conversation (it was years ago). When I read your comment I was like "I may know? How would I know??" ahaha.
Checking that conversation I remembered and I have to support what jxself said, their position towards Free Software is gray at best. Read one of their replies to me in that thread:
"
Proprietary dist builder does not make the releases proprietary.
All components included on the image are open source besides linux-firmware non-free.
If you want to study them, bootstrap and do a diff. We don’t make any changes to the standard distros outside of setting a few configs since we’re not distro maintainers.
We maintain separate bootloader and kernel and userspace hardware tooling for our boards. All of these are open source and available on GitHub.
"
While I am usually not as strongly opposed as others to using the term "open source" (in some contexts), here it clearly seemed to be used to not take a position on free vs non-free. I guess.... That's fine, if they are not going for a Free Software approach, it's their choice after all... though the "libre.computer" name ends up being misleading at best.
If I was going back to SBC projects now, I would avoid them.
> avoid them.
I do not think free software people have that luxury. I know about two arm computers able to run entirely on free software. That is why identifying every computer able to work entirely on free software is important.
> libre.computer" name ends up being misleading
I agree on that if libre computers are no better than other brands in terms of free software and they made no effort to get their computers as free software as possible and provide documentation on their computers' free software status.
They do not seem very free software friendly toward the community's questions. That seem reason enough to avoid them.
Might be possible someday to use them with a linux-libre kernel.
Although not sure when.