Purism is not free hardware

Purism is not free hardware

[Taiidan]

I wonder how much money it took for the FSF to finally sell out.

"Grassroots:
Purism, makers of fine free hardware"

https://libreplanet.org/2018/sponsors

Purism isn't free hardware, their computers use standard non-owner 
controlled intel chipsets/cpus with a not actually disabled ME and all 
the hardware initiation is performed by binary blobs.

Here is a post that explains it better than I can.

https://www.reddit.com/r/linux/comments/3anjgm/on_the_librem_laptop_purism_doesnt_believe_in/

Purism pretends it is impossible to make free hardware and claim that 
they are doing the best they can, so let us contrast them to companies 
like Raptor Computing Systems (TALOS 2) and Bunny Labs (Novena) who have 
produced real owner controlled libre hardware.


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Re: Purism is not free hardware

[Michael Downey]

That Reddit post is 2+ years old, FWIW. Here's the current status of their
project and their goal of getting RYF certification:
https://puri.sm/learn/freedom-roadmap/

Michael

On Mar 7, 2018 18:30, "Taiidan@gmx.com" <Taiidan@gmx.com> wrote:

> I wonder how much money it took for the FSF to finally sell out.
>
> "Grassroots:
> Purism, makers of fine free hardware"
>
> https://libreplanet.org/2018/sponsors
>
> Purism isn't free hardware, their computers use standard non-owner
> controlled intel chipsets/cpus with a not actually disabled ME and all the
> hardware initiation is performed by binary blobs.
>
> Here is a post that explains it better than I can.
>
> https://www.reddit.com/r/linux/comments/3anjgm/on_the_librem
> _laptop_purism_doesnt_believe_in/
>
> Purism pretends it is impossible to make free hardware and claim that they
> are doing the best they can, so let us contrast them to companies like
> Raptor Computing Systems (TALOS 2) and Bunny Labs (Novena) who have
> produced real owner controlled libre hardware.
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> libreplanet-discuss mailing list
> libreplanet-discuss@libreplanet.org
> https://lists.libreplanet.org/mailman/listinfo/libreplanet-discuss
>
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Re: Purism is not free hardware

[Stefan Nagy]

Am 07.03.2018 23:04 schrieb Taiidan@gmx.com:
> "Grassroots:
> Purism, makers of fine free hardware"
> 
> https://libreplanet.org/2018/sponsors
> 
> Purism isn't free hardware, […]

You are right, they don't offer free hardware. Since I respect their 
work
I wrote them an email and asked them to correct that.

It seems like they are willingly trying to unmake their reputation with
stupid misstatements like that. I don't get it…


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Re: Purism is not free hardware

[Stefan Nagy]

Am 08.03.2018 17:05 schrieb Stefan Nagy:
> Am 07.03.2018 23:04 schrieb Taiidan@gmx.com:
>> "Grassroots:
>> Purism, makers of fine free hardware"
>> 
>> https://libreplanet.org/2018/sponsors
>> 
>> Purism isn't free hardware, […]
> 
> You are right, they don't offer free hardware. Since I respect their 
> work
> I wrote them an email and asked them to correct that.
> 
> It seems like they are willingly trying to unmake their reputation with
> stupid misstatements like that. I don't get it…

It took Todd Weaver less than an hour to answer my email.

He says:
"Oh, joy. This is not out slogan, never has been […]. To be clear, we 
are
a sponsor of LibrePlanet but we did not provide that tagline."

A copy of his email went to the FSF and it took them less than ten
minutes to change the tagline. The new tagline is: "Purism, makers of
high quality laptops" [1].

[1] see https://libreplanet.org/2018/sponsors/


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Re: Purism is not free hardware

[John Sullivan]

Stefan Nagy <stefan.nagy@posteo.net> writes:

> Am 07.03.2018 23:04 schrieb Taiidan@gmx.com:
>> "Grassroots:
>> Purism, makers of fine free hardware"
>>
>> https://libreplanet.org/2018/sponsors
>>
>> Purism isn't free hardware, […]
>
> You are right, they don't offer free hardware. Since I respect their
> work
> I wrote them an email and asked them to correct that.
>
> It seems like they are willingly trying to unmake their reputation with
> stupid misstatements like that. I don't get it…

This was purely our mistake. Purism did not request that tagline (or any
tagline at all).

I apologize to Todd and the Purism crew, and to everyone for the
confusion. I'm sorry.

(We don't even currently certify free hardware -- only hardware that
works with and supports free software.)

-john

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Re: Purism is not free hardware

[Taiidan]

On 03/08/2018 06:33 PM, John Sullivan wrote:

> Stefan Nagy <stefan.nagy@posteo.net> writes:
>
>> Am 07.03.2018 23:04 schrieb Taiidan@gmx.com:
>>> "Grassroots:
>>> Purism, makers of fine free hardware"
>>>
>>> https://libreplanet.org/2018/sponsors
>>>
>>> Purism isn't free hardware, […]
>> You are right, they don't offer free hardware. Since I respect their
>> work
>> I wrote them an email and asked them to correct that.
>>
>> It seems like they are willingly trying to unmake their reputation with
>> stupid misstatements like that. I don't get it…
> This was purely our mistake. Purism did not request that tagline (or any
> tagline at all).
I am very surprised that there is someone at the FSF who is un-aware of 
the situation.
Again I still can't understand as to why purism gets so much air time on 
the FSF website and the tech news media yet legitimately libre hardware 
gets none.
"PureOS" is simply a debian clone used to peddle non-free laptops and 
now purism has obtained an implied endorsement from the FSF.
> I apologize to Todd and the Purism crew, and to everyone for the
> confusion. I'm sorry.
Was it really the fault of the FSF?
In the past purism has for instance posted a minifree bashing image on 
their twitter and then claimed it "wasn't an approved tweet"
https://web.archive.org/web/20150816183411/http://i0.wp.com/blogs.coreboot.org/files/2015/08/purism_attacks_minifree.png 

> (We don't even currently certify free hardware -- only hardware that
> works with and supports free software.)
Since they have a booth at libreplanet will they be allowed to have 
their false advertising or will all signs and literature be approved in 
advance?

* Coreboot with blobbed hardware initiation is not "free firmware"
* The LibreM is not at all libre hardware (gotta change that name)
* ME_Cleaner/HAP bit do not disable ME at all, the kernel still runs and 
can do as it pleases - if one fails to include the ME ROM the system 
WILL power off after 30 minutes and if one physically disconnects the ME 
processor from the system then the computer won't function - What purism 
does doesn't avoid the hypothetical intel firmware backdoor at all as it 
doesn't actually disable ME they are simply riding on the coat tails of 
the security research community.
* New intel x86_64 does not "respect your privacy, freedom and security"

They need to apologize and they need to stop the dishonest advertising - 
after that I will have no issue with them and I am sure people will 
still buy their products if they are completely honest about them.

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Re: Purism is not free hardware

[John Sullivan]

"Taiidan@gmx.com" <Taiidan@gmx.com> writes:

> Again I still can't understand as to why purism gets so much air time
> on the FSF website and the tech news media yet legitimately libre
> hardware gets none.


> "PureOS" is simply a debian clone used to peddle non-free laptops and
> now purism has obtained an implied endorsement from the FSF.

That is not an accurate description. PureOS is an endorsed distribution
because it has committed to upholding the Guidelines for Free System
Distribution. It made a number of important changes from Debian in order
to achieve that.

All or almost all of the currently endorsed distributions are based on
other nonendorsed distributions -- but the changes they make are
significant for user freedom.

>> I apologize to Todd and the Purism crew, and to everyone for the
>> confusion. I'm sorry.
> Was it really the fault of the FSF?

Yes.

-john

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Re: Purism is not free hardware

[Taiidan]

I thank you for your time but you have not answered my other question 
re: false advertising.

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Re: Purism is not free hardware

[Henry Jensen]

Am Fri, 09 Mar 2018 01:33:12 +0100
schrieb John Sullivan <johns@fsf.org>:

> "Taiidan@gmx.com" <Taiidan@gmx.com> writes:
> 
> > Again I still can't understand as to why purism gets so much air
> > time on the FSF website and the tech news media yet legitimately
> > libre hardware gets none.  
> 
> 
> > "PureOS" is simply a debian clone used to peddle non-free laptops
> > and now purism has obtained an implied endorsement from the FSF.  
> 
> That is not an accurate description. PureOS is an endorsed
> distribution because it has committed to upholding the Guidelines for
> Free System Distribution. It made a number of important changes from
> Debian in order to achieve that.

PureOS uses the same Linux kernel as Debian (i.e. not Linux-Libre),
which some people regard as a bug, because log messages like this
appear:

iwlwifi: 0000:03:00.0 firmware: failed to load iwlwifi-6000g2a-6.ucode

which indicates, that the kernel is looking for a non-free firmware
blob. By reading this message in the log file a user could learn about
it and be tempted to install this non-free software.


See also this thread:
http://lists.nongnu.org/archive/html/gnu-linux-libre/2017-12/msg00004.html

It was suggested, that this issue "was missed" when endorsing PureOS,
which I can't hardly imagine, because the used kernel is usually the
first thing to look at when reviewing a distro.


Regards,

Henry

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Re: Purism is not free hardware

[John Sullivan]

Henry Jensen <hjensen@gmx.de> writes:

> Am Fri, 09 Mar 2018 01:33:12 +0100
> schrieb John Sullivan <johns@fsf.org>:
>
>> "Taiidan@gmx.com" <Taiidan@gmx.com> writes:
>> 
>> > Again I still can't understand as to why purism gets so much air
>> > time on the FSF website and the tech news media yet legitimately
>> > libre hardware gets none.  
>> 
>> 
>> > "PureOS" is simply a debian clone used to peddle non-free laptops
>> > and now purism has obtained an implied endorsement from the FSF.  
>> 
>> That is not an accurate description. PureOS is an endorsed
>> distribution because it has committed to upholding the Guidelines for
>> Free System Distribution. It made a number of important changes from
>> Debian in order to achieve that.
>
> PureOS uses the same Linux kernel as Debian (i.e. not Linux-Libre),
> which some people regard as a bug, because log messages like this
> appear:
>
> iwlwifi: 0000:03:00.0 firmware: failed to load iwlwifi-6000g2a-6.ucode
>
> which indicates, that the kernel is looking for a non-free firmware
> blob. By reading this message in the log file a user could learn about
> it and be tempted to install this non-free software.
>

Yes, we have been revisiting this question and will publish our analysis
soon on the mailing list you linked to..

(For everyone's understanding, the nonfree firmware is not present on
the system; it is an issue of potentially recommending/suggesting.)

-john

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Re: Purism is not free hardware

[Adonay Felipe Nogueira]

> (For everyone's understanding, the nonfree firmware is not present on
> the system; it is an issue of potentially recommending/suggesting.)

I'm not an active distro reviewer right now, but I imagine this would
happen, this is why I suggested changing the log message to something
indirect, or hide any pointers to hardware, and just display "Failed to
load firmware."

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Re: Purism is not free hardware

[Taiidan]

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For those that went what did purisms marketing look like? are they still
claiming their laptops have "open source firmware"? will their next
generation of re-badged propriatary hardware still be called "LibreM"?

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