“FOSS means that effort is shared across organizations and lowers maintenance costs significantly” (src: comment by JohnFOSS on itsfoss.com)

getting the naming right: Why is it GNU Linux and not just Linux?

Linus talking about GPL v3 vs GPL v2 (the better one)

  • I heard that Linux ships with non-free “blobs” (pieces of software that are binary closed source)
  • Before many devices are able to communicate with the OS, they must first be initialized with the “firmware” provided by the device manufacturer.
  • This firmware is not part of Linux and isn’t “executed” by the kernel — it is merely uploaded to the device during the driver initialization stage.
  • While some firmware images are built from free software, a large subset of it is only available for redistribution in binary-only form.
  • To avoid any licensing confusion, firmware blobs were moved from the main Linux tree into a separate repository called linux-firmware.
  • It is possible to use Linux without any non-free firmware binaries, but usually at the cost of rendering a lot of hardware inoperable.
  • Furthermore, many devices that do not require a firmware blob during driver initialization simply already come with non-free firmware preinstalled on them.
  • If your goal is to run a 100% free-as-in-freedom setup, you will often need to go a lot further than just avoiding loadable binary-only firmware blobs.
  • src: https://kernel.org/category/faq.html

Links:

https://www.linuxplumbersconf.org/

because this site https://lpc2021.org/ is massively broken (WTF LPC?) who wants to watch the 2021 conference will have to rely on Google: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLVsQ_xZBEyN2c21jFUgqI2iMa094zXanH

manpage of man: man.man.txt

mandb.man.txt

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