[coreboot] greetings and laptop questions

[Jim Hendrick]

Thanks for all the interesting information for my questions (and - um -
"commentary" :-)
It has given me a lot to think about.

Best,
Jim



On Tue, Oct 10, 2017 at 7:10 PM, Taiidan at gmx.com <Taiidan at gmx.com> wrote:

> The lenovo G505S is the latest owner controlled coreboot x86-64 laptop,
> running the FT3 platform which is 4 years old.
> It supports VMX, RVI and IOMMU.
>
> While it does have a blob for video and power both of those have no
> hardware code signing features (thus replaceable), and unlike ivy bridge it
> doesn't have a black box supervisor processor.
>
> Had the folks from purism asked me what they should do, I would have
> suggested FT3.
>
> On 10/09/2017 07:54 PM, Youness Alaoui wrote:
>
> I don't get why you constantly try to discredit Purism and insult
>> everything we do. You complain about coreboot being "useless" because
>> it uses FSP, but you fail to mention that anything using coreboot will
>> use the FSP unless it's 10 year old hardware (Sandybridge is the
>> latest FSP-free supported CPU). The original email asked about a
>> coreboot port, not a libreboot port. Every time I see purism
>> mentioned, you have to jump in to insult and dishonestly say that
>> Purism is dishonest. If you want to claim bullshit like that, at least
>> find something real and concrete to back it up. I've ignored you many
>> times, but I'm fed up of your one-man vendetta against Purism. What
>> happened to you for you to have so much hate against us?
>>
> In the efforts of not getting moderated again we can continue this off
> list but it boils down to the dishonest crowdfunding style "some day we
> will do X" marketing.
>
> I would have recommended your devices at least once if you were selling
> them as they were instead of as they could be.
>
> I dislike:
> * Aspirational marketing "LibreM" "every chip hand selected to respect
> your privacy" "continued efforts to remove ME" that confuses even linux
> veterans and detracts from competitors products.
> * The lobbying for the FSF to decrease the RYF standards
> * (although most companies do this) Not asking the target audience for
> advice on what to do next.
>
> I wouldn't have said anything but on the other lists I visit for every
> person like me there are 5 others who constantly talk up your products. I
> believe everyone needs critical voices.
>
> On 10/09/2017 08:42 PM, Nico Huber wrote:
>
> On 09.10.2017 00:15, Taiidan at gmx.com wrote:
>>
>>> their version of coreboot is
>>> nothing more than a wrapper layer for intel FSP (binary blob that does
>>> all the hardware init) which is next to pointless for the amount of
>>> money you would spend on one as all it does is move trust from vendor to
>>> OEM not avoiding the hypothetical OEM firmware backdoors.
>>>
>> I've seen that mentioned a lot and can only say: Please stop spreading
>> that FUD about coreboot. Even with blobed silicon init, coreboot still
>> gives you about 80% of the freedom of a free firmware. You only have
>> to trust in one party that provides the blob and not in n parties that
>> put their code into the usual Windows booting firmware. coreboot, even
>> blobed, also gives you much more freedom about the platform configu-
>> ration and the boot process as a whole.
>>
>> Don't get me wrong, I don't like FSP either (from a developer point of
>> view, it makes coreboot porting twice as hard and 10 times more frus-
>> trating if something doesn't work right away). You can stomp on it as
>> you wish. But please don't disgrace coreboot.
>>
> Can you suggest a better way of saying it?
>
> People with EE/CS degrees (non-laymen I suppose) I have conversed with
> over the years still consider "coreboot" to mean what it did circa 2011
> where the only real difference between coreboot and libre* was
> philosophical not technical, when someone says "our devices have coreboot"
> they believe that it is entirely "free firmware".
>
> While an FSP coreboot "port" is still technically superior to an entirely
> closed source firmware no one I have talked to would consider spending an
> extra 1K per device just to cut the vendor out of the trust picture (they
> and I desire silicon init)
>
>
> I propose a kind of freedom-level badge certification system (like "Intel
> Inside" stickers) for this situation with everything clearly explained on a
> central website to solve this situation, similar to the one currently on
> the coreboot wiki.
>
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