Replying to
@MugsysRapSheet@mastodon.social @Orb2069@mastodon.online
In 1984 the GNU Project set out to make it possible to operate a computer in freedom--to operate it without any non-free software that would deny the user's freedom
At the time, the obstacle to this was simply the operating system. A computer won't run without an operating system, but all the modern operating systems of 1983 were proprietary, user-subjugating software. There was no way to use modern computers in freedom. We set out to change the situation by developing a free software operating system, called GNU.
When the kernel Linux became free software in 1992, it filled the last gap in GNU. The combined GNU/Linux operating system achieved our goal: you could install it in a bare PC, and run the computer without any installed non-free software.
Strictly speaking, there was a non-free program in that computer: the BIOS. But that was impossible to replace, and by the same token, it didn't count.
The BIOS was impossible to replace because it was stored in ROM: the only way to to put in a different BIOS was by replacing part of the hardware. In effect, the BIOS was itself hardware--and therefore didn't really count as software.
#Firmware #Flash #CMOS #CoreBoot #FreeSoftware #LibreBoot #BIOShttps://www.fsf.org/campaigns/free-bios.html
