Michael Larabel reports via Phoronix
Librecore is a new project aiming to be a new Coreboot downstream with a focus remaining on providing fully-free system firmware. Separately, Minifree/Libreboot has been accused (and admitted by Leah Rowe) to not paying a vendor for a completed contract.
Librecore was formed due to "[Libreboot lead developer Leah Rowe] alienating large portions of the community, plus the stagnant and hard to use libreboot firmware and build system." With Librecore, they are aiming to use industry-standard tools and build environments. Another different design decision is pursuing Petitboot as the payload for a more modern and useful interface over GRUB as a payload.
[An] email from [Timothy Pearson of Raptor Engineering, one of the developers involved with the formation of Librecore, says]
We strongly recommend that no person do any business with Minifree or its founder Leah Rowe, as they do not honor their legally binding contracts.
The author notes that Rowe sent him an email that attempts damage control while admitting that she gyped Pearson.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 24 2017, @07:02PM
Please, for the love of $DEITY, get the libre movement some hardware developers! We need to escape the proprietary game entirely!
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Zz9zZ on Tuesday January 24 2017, @07:37PM
While I will probably always run a less-than-free OS due to hardware support for work/games, I will gladly run a free system on "ancient" hardware for my personal use.
~Tilting at windmills~
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 24 2017, @09:24PM
Keep an eye on lowRISC. The RISC-V project has created a patent-unencumbered and modern instruction set architecture, and a set of permissively licensed HDLs for several CPU cores implementing this ISA. Microcontroller-class silicon has recently shipped (see SiFive), and the lowRISC guys will hopefully deliver an application processor-class silicon this year.
Open GPUs still seem to be very far away though, and that's a big piece of the puzzle.
(SiFive's MCU technically isn't 100% libre though, due to the unique issues around fab-specific "hard IP". Still, it's an important milestone).
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 24 2017, @09:49PM
"6 year old AMD hardware"
If you're referring to this [soylentnews.org], that's just a future planned effort, not a current usable achievement.
(Score: 3, Funny) by driverless on Wednesday January 25 2017, @03:31AM
It's OK, every discussion ever that covers hardware or firmware has to have at least one mention of RISC-V, EOMA68, and perhaps OpenRISC for good measure. Everyone has to have their hopeless cause to believe in...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 24 2017, @11:28PM
Just need several million dollars worth of lithography machines a few more million of electoplating and chemical baths. Oh and a decent clean room.
If you can get *that* cost down hardware will be free.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Tuesday January 24 2017, @11:33PM
Don't worry, we'll be 3D-printing our own graphene CPUs in about 10 years!
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by stormwyrm on Wednesday January 25 2017, @04:00AM
Numquam ponenda est pluralitas sine necessitate.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 25 2017, @08:59AM
The reason 'free' and 'free' software exists is because the cost to make infinite copies is *very* low. The up front design cost is not. Making something is always high cost.
However hardware has a different issue. To make infinite copies of something the cost is decently high. You do not see GNU style free hardware because of that. There are some simple designs out there. But for the most part hardware has a different copy issue than software does. It does not really encourage both kinds of free things.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by azrael on Tuesday January 24 2017, @09:04PM
Probably best to avoid terms which are very likely racist [about.com], though admittedly many don't realise - so not accusing editor of doing so deliberately!
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 24 2017, @09:13PM
It's not racist. It was racist in the past, but considering that people have to be informed of its racist origins, it's rather ridiculous to claim that it's racist.
Or, are you one of those people who insists that nice only refers to bumpkins that come to the big city?
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 24 2017, @11:04PM
Yes, I'm aware of the origin of the word--from centuries ago.
As an AC has noted, that has been blurred by the years as to be meaningless, like so many terms that we use routinely.
I saw a former wife of Elton John being interviewed for TeeVee.
Because she was a dancer, she wanted to be know as "Gyp", again short for gypsy, a term used by dancers to describe their transient, tenuous employment/existence.
The interviewer asked if she wasn't aware of the negative context.
Apparently, the dancer hadn't ever encountered the word used in that way.
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 25 2017, @12:28AM
I get the need to be ethnic sensitive, but based on my experience that term is not offensive. My personal experience when visiting Rome 10+ years ago and having a Gypsy try to pickpocket me in broad daylight near the Forum did not endear me to them.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 27 2017, @06:49AM
I had the same experience. In my case it was a son who had his hand in my pocket and there was an adult with him. I had to restrain myself from punching either of them.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Arik on Wednesday January 25 2017, @02:00AM
What's more, the USA is not the whole world and even when we can basically agree on something that doesn't mean the rest of the world, or even just the rest of the English-as-a-first-language-world, agrees with us. An example; "oriental" seems to be commonly regarded as offensive in the USA today, though it was not a few decades ago. The PC substitute is 'asian' which is actually not a satisfactory substitute in any way, as asian is a superset of oriental. In the UK, however, I understand 'asian' is generally understood to include only south asians, not the east asians we used to call 'oriental.' None of this makes much sense and it's a mistake to expect it to.
Most of these etymologies are questionable, btw, but few moreso than your presumption that 'gyped' actually relates to gypsy/roma peoples. It's quite possible it does derive from "Egyption" which is what the Roma claimed to be at times and where the word 'gypsy' comes from, but it might actually originate from a Greek word for vulture instead. But don't let the facts get in the way of being offended, surely not!
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anal Pumpernickel on Wednesday January 25 2017, @08:08AM
Very likely racist? Context and intent matter. If someone had no racist intentions when they used a word, then I see no reason to complain about it. This applies to every word in existence, by the way. The way people use language changes over time, and even an individual's usage of a certain term may be different from the norm.
If someone is offended by the mere mention of a word, then too bad for them.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 25 2017, @09:03AM
Take the phrase "hey my nigger!". Depending on context and who says it it can be a term of endearment or a pejorative or both.
In the context used the word you are trying to get everyone twisted up about people understood it to mean to be 'ripped off'. There is plenty in this world to be mad about. You would be better to focus on that.
(Score: 4, Informative) by requerdanos on Tuesday January 24 2017, @09:08PM
Just a reminder, this is the same Leah Rowe that maintains the "Why your project should never join GNU [libreboot.org]" page as part of bickering with (well, mostly at) the Free Software Foundation that forms the most prominently featured part, by far, of Libreboot's web presence. Even if she has some good points (it's plausible but hard to tell), she has turned up the crazy to 11 [postimg.org] on their web site with angry pop-over banners decrying all things FSF.
That's unfortunate, as Libreboot is the organization possibly doing the most to call attention to the "Intel Management Engine"/"AMD Platform Security Processor" super-root hardware backdoor problem in all modern x86 CPUs. They call far less attention to this problem than to their bickering with GNU, rms, and the FSF. Small wonder the community might feel alienated.
(Score: 2) by Scruffy Beard 2 on Wednesday January 25 2017, @05:28AM
I don't see why that is so crazy. According to This page [libreboot.org], a major part of the dispute (Libreboot being included as a GNU project) was not resolved until: 5 January 2017.
That is less than 3 weeks ago.
It makes sense to, at least temporarily, promote a stand made on principle.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 25 2017, @06:15AM
Seeing as joining the GNU Project generally entails assigning copyright to the FSF, the fact that they honored her unilateral declaration that the project had left strikes me as rather magnanimous.
(Score: 2) by mojo chan on Wednesday January 25 2017, @08:41AM
It's sad that when people raise concerns in the free software community they get vilified like this. I knew it was inevitable when she spoke up, but it's doubly sad that Soylent is joining in. Needless to say I won't be donated to Soylet if it's going to go all GamerGate over this.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
(Score: 3, Informative) by FatPhil on Wednesday January 25 2017, @09:53AM
That makes her toxic, and borderline loon, in my book.
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 25 2017, @06:30PM
Yup. Rejected submission from September:
Recent Libreboot Headlines Were Due to 1 Person [soylentnews.org]
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Friday January 27 2017, @10:11AM
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 25 2017, @10:00AM
Dude, lady's off her rocker.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 25 2017, @02:06PM
Are you not vilifying our community for raising concerns?
(Score: 4, Funny) by DannyB on Tuesday January 24 2017, @09:53PM
A modern bloatloader should have a cool 3D graphics UI like you would expect from Hollywood. This will give the user a feeling of security. Modular 3D drivers can be installed into the bootloader. To keep it all current, it should support automatic updates from the manufacturer, of course. ("boot delayed while updating graphics drivers, please wait . . .")
To improve upon GRUB's ability to modify things at the bootloader screen, a modern bootloader should allow remote access to control the boot process from one of your other computers that is operational.
What other best / worst ideas can you think of ?
A new bootloader project needs to have a marketing and graphic artist running the team. What kind of booting experience does the end user want? This question has not been given the attention it deserves.
/s
Infinity is clearly an even number since the next higher number is odd.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 24 2017, @11:31PM
A good bootloader/BIOS/UEFI should follow the standards.
A good one should let me at all of switches.
A good one should not lock me out of those.
A good one should get the H out of the way once the OS is up and running.
(Score: 4, Funny) by boltronics on Wednesday January 25 2017, @07:53AM
A few years from now, somebody will look back on this joke and it won't be funny anymore.
It's GNU/Linux dammit!
(Score: 2) by Justin Case on Wednesday January 25 2017, @10:17AM
Indeed. Back in the early days of the web I remember somebody bitching that the way things were going, we were going to end up with a Font Negotiation Protocol.
I think we're just about there!
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Wednesday January 25 2017, @05:21PM
Maybe you remember a joke back in ancient times about being able to get a computer virus by email. You could get the virus by merely reading the email.
Ah, ha ha! It was so funny. Because, in general, people on Usenet understood how email was just text. Sometimes using MIME extensions, it could have attachments.
But then came Microsoft who turned this joke into reality.
A bootloader with installable 3D graphics support? Hmmmm.
Infinity is clearly an even number since the next higher number is odd.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 25 2017, @06:08AM
- Librecore: Aiming To Be A Better Libre Spin Of Coreboot #10 [phoronix.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 25 2017, @08:14AM
With the toxic personality associated with it, one wonders if this project will be the next OpenOffice.org, where the devs jump ship en mass to work on the fork.
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by Scruffy Beard 2 on Wednesday January 25 2017, @08:18PM
From what I have read, her personality does not seem that toxic.
Apparently, the GNU project finally gave up ownership of Libreboot when all of (or at least most) the developers followed her.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 26 2017, @01:23AM
She wants to be a dictator.
...and, to my understanding, not the benevolent kind.
See the comment by FatPhil, above. [soylentnews.org]
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]