Re:I Love Arch, but GNU Guix Is My New Distro
by rightbyte on Saturday November 20, 2021 @07:28AM
(#29287496)
> a few years later, open drivers for that GPU were developed
So ... FSF made the right call? What is the point of the certification of a device if there are no drivers for it.
Re:I Love Arch, but GNU Guix Is My New Distro
by detuur on Saturday November 20, 2021 @08:11AM
(#29287774)
The wrong call, because you can only reasonably develop drivers for uncrippled GPUs. The FSF was so caught up in maintaining a freedom from being _tempted_ to use proprietary software, that their solution would've taken away the freedom to develop your own free software.
Re:I Love Arch, but GNU Guix Is My New Distro
by rightbyte on Saturday November 20, 2021 @09:23AM
(#29288307)
I read the certification is some sort of consumer protection/advice. As a consumer, you would want to know the state of the device at purchase when you pay for the GPU. Not some maybe driver coming up in years.
It would be a kinda good idea to have a "rms would almost use this" sticker they could hand out, though.
Looking at: https://ryf.fsf.org/categories/laptops
There is a sorry collection of refurbished laptops.
Stallman personally refused to certify bunnie's Novena laptop (a fully open hardware and software laptop) as "Respects your Freedom" because there were no free drivers for the GPU, and although it wasn't going to ship with GPU acceleration (that's optional anyway), Stallman said users might be "tempted" to install the proprietary blob. Instead he suggested it might be possible to get the manufacturer to cripple the GPU (permanently fuse it off of existing chips that already have it), and then that could be RYF-certified.
bunnie gave up on that, but had he actually shipped a crippled FSF-approved version... a few years later, open drivers for that GPU were developed, so that would've made the regular version certifiable, and everyone who bought the "respects your freedom" version would've been left with needlessly crippled hardware. But the FSF insists this is the way to go.
Meanwhile, they're endorsing "Respects Your Freedom" Bluetooth dongles that have about half a megabyte of proprietary firmware in ROM.