Ariadne Conill: the FSF’s relationship with firmware is harmful to free software users
The normal Linux kernel is not recommended by the FSF, because it allows for the use of proprietary firmware with devices. Instead, they recommend Linux-libre, which disables support for proprietary firmware by ripping out code which allows for the firmware to be loaded on to devices. Libreboot, being FSF-recommended, also has this policy of disallowing firmware blobs in the source tree, despite it being a source of nothing but problems.
The end result is that users who deploy the FSF-recommended firmware and kernel wind up with varying degrees of broken configurations. Worse yet, the Linux-libre project removes warning messages which suggest a user may want to update their processor microcode to avoid Meltdown and Spectre security vulnerabilities.
While it is true that processor microcode is a proprietary blob, from a security and reliability point of view, there are two types of CPU: you can have a broken CPU, or a less broken CPU, and microcode updates are intended to give you a less broken CPU. This is particularly important because microcode updates fix real problems in the CPU, and Libreboot has patches which hack around problems caused by deficient microcode burned into the CPU at manufacturing time, since it’s not allowed to update the microcode at early boot time.
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Conill: the FSF’s relationship with firmware is harmful...
Conill: the FSF’s relationship with firmware is harmful to free software users