The FSF's Free Software Awards

Posted Mar 21, 2023 12:01 UTC (Tue) by farnz (subscriber, #17727)
In reply to: The FSF's Free Software Awards by pabs
Parent article: The FSF's Free Software Awards

Part of the problem with RYF as it exists today is that it's a straight binary - I pointed this out to them over ten years ago, and basically got told to shut up because they knew better.

My suggestion was to have three levels of RYF, giving vendors reason to do better over time.

Gold. All firmware must be Free. If the firmware is not replaceable by the user, then there is good technical justification for why this is not possible, it must be possible for the user to verify that the firmware embedded in hardware matches the source they have for it, and it must be possible for a running system to avoid using the non-replaceable firmware without loss of functionality or performance.
Silver. All replaceable firmware must be Free. Where non-replaceable firmware is non-free, it must be possible for a running system to avoid using the non-free firmware without loss of functionality or performance. This thus requires CPU microcode, FPGA configuration bitstreams and the like to be Free, but allows boot ROMs to be non-Free, provided that the boot ROM just loads a Free firmware from an external source (host system, external Flash, whatever).
Bronze. All replaceable firmware must be Free; non-Free firmware must not be trivial for the manufacturer to replace either.

The idea is that Gold is where we want everyone to be - all firmware is Free, and the user is treated as the ultimate authority on their device. Silver is an acceptable compromise - once you're booted, no non-Free firmware is involved, but the boot phase may involve non-free embedded boot ROMs and the like (e.g. TI Sitara SoCs have a ROM bootloader that brings up enough of the SoC to load the "real" firmware from external storage). And Bronze is the current FSF RYF policy, a compromise to let you test the waters with RYF.

Beyond that, I suggested that the FSF offer guidance on what needs to change for a device to climb the rankings - so while a laptop might get Bronze, the FSF would then say things like "to move to Silver, this laptop needs the CPU microcode and SSD firmware Freed. To move to Gold, this laptop needs CPU microcode, SSD firmware, SSD boot ROM and WiFi controller boot ROM Freed". The goal here is twofold: one is that you can look at that list and decide that you're willing to compromise on the non-free parts, and the second is that manufacturers who submit a device for certification can both trivially get Bronze, and have guidance on who to lean on if they want Silver or Gold in future (e.g. "I have an alternate CPU vendor that'd meet Gold if I switched, I just need to find an SSD vendor who meets Silver and I've got a Silver grade device").

I was told, however, quite firmly, that the FSF was sufficiently influential that vendors would Free their firmware just to get RYF certification, and that adding layers of certification wouldn't encourage more freeing of firmware. It's now 10 years later - how many vendors have done that?

The FSF's Free Software Awards

Posted Mar 21, 2023 13:41 UTC (Tue) by Wol (subscriber, #4433) [Link]

> The idea is that Gold is where we want everyone to be - all firmware is Free, and the user is treated as the ultimate authority on their device.

And if "user <> owner"?

What if it's a multi-user system?

My work laptop is locked down. It's annoying and frustrating at times, but it's not my work laptop so I don't have any real say in the matter, And rightly so. If I can't do my job because it's locked down, then that's not my problem ...

I do agree with having a scale of freedom - you often have to make trade-offs and who are you to dictate which trade-off is right for me :-) - but people should have choices, and telling them that the manufacturer can change the deal after they've bought the device (PS2 anyone?) should NOT be acceptable.

Cheers,
Wol

The FSF's Free Software Awards

Posted Mar 21, 2023 16:36 UTC (Tue) by pizza (subscriber, #46) [Link] (1 responses)

> 3. Bronze. All replaceable firmware must be Free; non-Free firmware must not be trivial for the manufacturer to replace either.

But that still doesn't address the fundamental flaw RYF as it exists today, namely the absurd claim that having replaceable non-free firmware is somehow "less respectful of your freedom" than non-replaceable non-free firmware. (where "replaceable" actually means "the end-user has no way of doing so", not "there is no simple-ish technical means to do so")

(It also flies completely in the face of the reality of "best practice" hardware design of the last couple of decades -- field-upgradability of firmware is usually a hard requirement, often due to legal mandates)

> I was told, however, quite firmly, that the FSF was sufficiently influential that vendors would Free their firmware just to get RYF certification, and that adding layers of certification wouldn't encourage more freeing of firmware. It's now 10 years later - how many vendors have done that?

What's sad is that even ten years ago, it should have been clear to them that they did *not* have sufficient influence. After all, 10 years ago was still 5 years after the GPLv3 landed, and the wholesale abandonment/replacement of GNU software (and other than the Linux kernel, copyleft in general) was well under way at that point in time.

The FSF's Free Software Awards

Posted Mar 21, 2023 16:51 UTC (Tue) by farnz (subscriber, #17727) [Link]

I agree that my suggestion then for Bronze wasn't ideal - it was based on the assumption that the FSF had thought about it, and had decided that this was the minimum acceptable compromise. I was suggesting that they should add extra levels above this minimum compromise to make it clear that the desired target is Free firmware everywhere, and got told not to bother them.