[coreboot] Classification of blobs and respecting your freedom

[mrnuke]

In the search for a good LTS (long term support) laptop, I've had to think 
hard of which blobs could be consider acceptable, and which would disqualify 
candidates. I've made a write-up about this classification here[1].

The idea is simple: find out which blobs would disqualify the machine from 
being Respects Your Freedom (RYF) certifiable. RYF capability, in my opinion, 
is a very important feature of any laptop which we plan to support for a long 
while. A machine as old as the x60 has seen a steady increase in its user base 
since the GluGlug has received RYF certification. Almost every week, I see a 
few people asking on IRC about how to flash coreboot on the X60, or how to 
unbrick it. A number of those people are using the pre-built images supplied 
by libreboot. Did I convince you RYF is essential? Maybe not. Is it definitely 
desireable. For an LTS candidate, it's pretty darn important.

And while you may not give much importance to RYF, the X60's desirability is 
something we want to continue to repeat in the future. There is a niche market 
thirsty for this king of thing. That means we must start caring about RYF, 
whether you like it or not.

With RYF, there are a number of elements that need to come together in 
harmony. I have tried to understand how we, as firmware hackers, could better 
accommodate the situation. There is a lot we can do to make sure that a 
machine can take the path to RYF certification. I will call that RYF-capable. 
Note that "capable" does not necessarily mean "certifiable".

What I mean by "RYF capable" is that it is reasonable for a group of community 
hackers to get together and eliminate any offending blobs. This is where the 
classification comes in. We need to be able to talk about blobs in terms of 
simple criteria. With this classification, all essential blobs must be 
reasonably removable.

So, while the RYF-certified machine may have reduced functionality than the 
same RYF-capable machine, a machine will never be RYF-certified, if it is not 
RYF-capable.

Anyhow, I wanted to ask what you guys think about the classification.

Alex

[1] http://www.coreboot.org/Binary_situation#Classification_of_blobs