There is no freedom without information. Freedom requires being informed so you can take decisions that you believe are best for you. Lack of knowledge restricts your ability to make the right choices, and thus your freedom.

"Freedom" through lack of information is the kind of tactic that repressive regimes use to control their populace. It has no place in an organization claiming to further and support true freedom.

I don't fully agree with some of these decisions, but in the defense of Guix I must say as a user replacing linux-libre by the linux kernel is trivial if you are using guix tooling.

And exactly when did Guix or the FSF censor anything?

I'm not speaking for them, but I'm pretty sure they would say something in the realm of "the information provided by your updates is a false sense of security, so why WOULD we pass that on?"

Reading this from the guy who's trying to put Linux on a black-box has a certain flavor of irony, to me.

Yes, but how does static proprietary firmware blobs burned into ROM "preserve user freedom" vs. dynamic loading, even if the user has complete control? It doesn't, and that's why it's arbitrary.

Those two things are WILDLY DIFFERENT in real life. Broadly, "firmware blobs" are usually put there by companies and other entities that you can much better track (and sue if you have to). Dynamic loading stuff can come from any-darn-where. Apologies, but this should be really obvious.

Yes, that is obvious. It is in fact one of the benefits dynamic loading provides for people who care about free software. The blob can often be reverse engineered and replaced with free software.

And literally everyone signs their firmware.

The OP referenced CPUs and for at least AMD and Intel CPUs, firmware blobs need to be signed.

In theory a government could force AMD or Intel to sign a malicious firmware. That could be distributed as the normal firmware or used to target a specific person.

Firmware that ships with the actual CPU is a bit 'safer' because it has a lot more users and eyes looking at it (sort of). Depends on what your attack vector is.

Another aspect is that while this policy is worse for Linux-libre users, it is sort of a protest against needing these binary blobs. The hope is certainly that adoption of Linux-libre would result in AMD/Intel not having these non-free software requirements.

Nobody is looking at Intel's microcode mask ROM. It's in ROM. You can't even look at it.

Microcode is a bad example because the updates are encrypted too, but for the vast majority of the blobs that the FSF hates so much, at least you can look at them and audit them with a disassembler. Meanwhile, the devices with giant firmware ROMs that they openly endorse are not auditable, as you can't see the blob. This policy is making it easier for manufacturers to ship backdoors that will never be detected.

so after so many posts this is the only one that expresses your point clearly. notice how it does not contain any FUD

to the said point, this is definitely a VALID security concern. FSF needs to make these concerns clear. you seem to be very invested in this matter. have you raised these concerns with them?

EDIT: having thought about it some more. doesnt isolating blobs to ROMs restrict the problems to ROMs? i mean non-RYF certified hardware already has this problem. the strategy might them be to focus efforts on opening up ROMs. note that this is simply a question. i am not an expert in this field but i am trying to form an informed opinion

People have raised these concerns. I have personally raised this concern directly to RMS at one of his conferences.

It gets ignored.

I believe it is for the same reason religions ignore issues.

The FSF totally acts as a religion. The church of his Gnusance St. Ignutiutus. And just like religions it pretends to hold an ethical position while making compromises for practical reasons.

Compare religions claiming:

- Killing is bad, unless it's about opponents in war. - Slavery is bad, unless it's outsiders who are slaves. - Blobs are bad, unless they are stored on chip flash.

The FSF gets criticized precisely for this hypocrisy. And just like religions ignore criticism about their inconsistencies so does the FSF.

>The FSF totally acts as a religion. The church of his Gnusance St. Ignutiutus. And just like religions it pretends to hold an ethical position while making compromises for practical reasons.

so is FSF dogmatic or is it practical? surely they cant be both

It's definitely both -- it's just that the dogma is broad, and they appear to very carefully and intelligently choose battles. The dogma is "long term software freedom." This includes occasionally accepting that there are battles not worth fighting (or better yet, fighting strategically.)

A really simple example is GPL violations. Pure dogma would require that they try to fight a whole lot of them, since they occur all the time and they're clearly in the legal right.

But they don't, and that's the MUCH SMARTER way to go.

Why this Guix thing strikes me as smart is that it's about "reinforcing modularity." They can't free up EVERYTHING, but they can make the software work different so that it's harder to pretend that everything is all the same.

then you must disagree with alexvoda who said that FSF "pretends to hold an ethical position"?

to clarify my previous post, i was using the term dogmatic in the context of some people claiming that FSF is a cult

To go big picture, I think all of this is rooted in the fact that "capitalism as practiced" has addled our brains into thinking that there can only be two kinds of organizations, companies that go for profit at all cost, and pure-of-heart non-profits that must be on some monk-like religious stuff.

What it can't conceive of is an organization with big picture goals that aren't "making a profit" that require strategy and even "real life experimentation." That's what's happening here; y'all are just confused because the FSF feels like "religion" because it's not going for profits, but somewhat acting like a for-profit, in that it's picking and choosing battles.

i dont think FSF is a religion. actually i am arguing against this labeling

Lots of people have tried to raise concerns such as this one with them. They've stopped listening.

Cited from the article:

To respect these principles the Guix project (and others) asks to not discuss non-free software, hardware support, or related matters on official channels. These questions and non-free packages are best left to any number of other venues. Guix does not actively hamper a user’s ability to load non-free software or firmware (see freedom 0), but will not support this in any official capacity. That said, the community is very nice and will not kick you from IRC if it comes up (more likely you’ll get some private messages directing you or helping you out), but better to remember their rules.

I think that says all.

"Hush, hush, and don't look under the rugs!"

I don't think that's what is being "said" at all.

This is diplomacy. This is exactly the correct way to act when you are diametrically opposed to something that is widely used, popular, and prevalent -- when you hate something; but understand that other people don't and you're going to have win them over.