76 lines
3.2 KiB
Plaintext
76 lines
3.2 KiB
Plaintext
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@node Top
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@top top
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@subsection Free
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@node What is this?
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@subsection What is this?
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@anchor{#what-is-this}
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GNU Boot is a free software project aimed at replacing the proprietary
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boot firmware that comes with computers with free boot software.
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@node How this project came to exist
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@subsection How this project came to exist
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@anchor{#how-this-project-came-to-exist}
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We believe computer users deserve to control all the software they run.
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This belief is the key principle of the Free Software Movement, and was
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the motive for developing the GNU operating system and starting the Free
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Software Foundation. We believe computer user freedom is a crucial human
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rights.
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In order to achieve our goal, it is crucial that we call a program
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``free'' or ``libre'' only when it is indeed free in its entirety. When
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we talk about specific programs, we must not muddle the facts about what
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is free and what is not. If people start referring to a progran as
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``libre,'' when parts of it are not in fact libre, that tends to lead
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the community astray.
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Unfortunately, such a muddle happened last year with a boot program that
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was free software and is called Libreboot: the development team added
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nonfree code to it, but continued to use ``Libre'' in its name.
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Libreboot was first released in 2013. It has been widely recommended in
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the free software community for the last nine years. In November 2022,
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Libreboot began to include non-libre code. We have made repeated efforts
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to continue collaboration with those developers to help their version of
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Libreboot remain libre, but that was not successful.
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Now we've stepped forward to stand up for freedom, ours and that of the
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wider community, by maintaining our own version -- a genuinely libre
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Libreboot, that after some hurdles gave birth to this project: GNU Boot.
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@node Our short term plans and need for help
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@subsection Our short term plans and need for help
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@anchor{#our-short-term-plans-and-need-for-help}
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We are seeking contributors for various jobs, both simple and technical.
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The Libreboot name has a long history in the free software community.
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Most occurrences of the uses were intended to refer to boot software
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that was libre, and there is no way to edit those occurrences to refer
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to libre boot software by a different name. Therefore, we need help from
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the wider community to inform people about the inclusion of nonfree
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software in the Libreboot releases.
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Another way to help this project and take a stand for fully free
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software is to change URLs across the web from <libreboot.org> to
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<gnu.org/software/gnuboot>, to make sure that the mentioned software is
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reliably free software.
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You can also help our project by informing people about GNU boot or
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other 100% free boot software.
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While there is some documentation in our git repositories, we also need
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help adding explanations on how to contribute, build and test this
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website.
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Adrien `neox' Bourmault and Denis `GNUtoo' Carikli are the interim
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maintainers of this GNU Boot project. They will also review patches sent
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to the mailing list.
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Several organizations and people have already offered help for testing
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the first release candidate.
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Making this project part of GNU is part of our work to ensure that our
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genuine Libreboot version remains free and continue to be maintained
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over time.
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