@node Top
@top top

@subsection Free

@node What is this?
@subsection What is this?
@anchor{#what-is-this}
GNU Boot is a free software project aimed at replacing the proprietary
boot firmware that comes with computers with free boot software.

@node How this project came to exist
@subsection How this project came to exist
@anchor{#how-this-project-came-to-exist}
We believe computer users deserve to control all the software they run.
This belief is the key principle of the Free Software Movement, and was
the motive for developing the GNU operating system and starting the Free
Software Foundation. We believe computer user freedom is a crucial human
rights.

In order to achieve our goal, it is crucial that we call a program
``free'' or ``libre'' only when it is indeed free in its entirety. When
we talk about specific programs, we must not muddle the facts about what
is free and what is not. If people start referring to a progran as
``libre,'' when parts of it are not in fact libre, that tends to lead
the community astray.

Unfortunately, such a muddle happened last year with a boot program that
was free software and is called Libreboot: the development team added
nonfree code to it, but continued to use ``Libre'' in its name.

Libreboot was first released in 2013. It has been widely recommended in
the free software community for the last nine years. In November 2022,
Libreboot began to include non-libre code. We have made repeated efforts
to continue collaboration with those developers to help their version of
Libreboot remain libre, but that was not successful.

Now we've stepped forward to stand up for freedom, ours and that of the
wider community, by maintaining our own version -- a genuinely libre
Libreboot, that after some hurdles gave birth to this project: GNU Boot.

@node Our short term plans and need for help
@subsection Our short term plans and need for help
@anchor{#our-short-term-plans-and-need-for-help}
We are seeking contributors for various jobs, both simple and technical.

The Libreboot name has a long history in the free software community.
Most occurrences of the uses were intended to refer to boot software
that was libre, and there is no way to edit those occurrences to refer
to libre boot software by a different name. Therefore, we need help from
the wider community to inform people about the inclusion of nonfree
software in the Libreboot releases.

Another way to help this project and take a stand for fully free
software is to change URLs across the web from <libreboot.org> to
<gnu.org/software/gnuboot>, to make sure that the mentioned software is
reliably free software.

You can also help our project by informing people about GNU boot or
other 100% free boot software.

While there is some documentation in our git repositories, we also need
help adding explanations on how to contribute, build and test this
website.

Adrien `neox' Bourmault and Denis `GNUtoo' Carikli are the interim
maintainers of this GNU Boot project. They will also review patches sent
to the mailing list.

Several organizations and people have already offered help for testing
the first release candidate.

Making this project part of GNU is part of our work to ensure that our
genuine Libreboot version remains free and continue to be maintained
over time.