Re: [Trisquel-users] Librebox (with Coreboot) - Hello Again
We will be updating our website in order to make anyone understand what's still not free on our devices, but in the meantime we supply the firmware with cleaned ME and the list of not-yet-freed-pieces is the following: ME, FSP, microcode, VGAROM, VBT (Video Bios Table), xHCI. We are working on having it freed. We are also working on having FWUPD support in order for our firmware to be updated in a fastest and more simple way. This allows us to have some time to free things and let everyone know when something has been freed and/or improved.
[Trisquel-users] Librebox (with Coreboot) - Hello Again
Hi Everyone, My name is Luis Da Costa and I'm the CEO of a Portuguese startup company, free software oriented, called Libretrend. I'm also a Trisquel member for over 6 years. I started here as a student interested in Free Software, then I launched the first Librebox in 2014 which was free software friendly (meaning that it wouldn't include any hardware that would require blobs to run on the Operating System). We are back (yes, we, because now we are a team of 5). In almost 3 years we listened to everything you guys said, and we learned.. a lot! This is why we wouldn't make the same mistake, of releasing a proprietary BIOS, again. So here we are, presenting the new Librebox: "The most powerful - out-of-factory - computer with Coreboot". The new Librebox was presented officially at the Open Source Lisbon 2018 (here in Portugal) and will be presented again with a TPM update at the Web Summit 2018 (Lisbon). Thank you for your time, and sorry for those to whom this post sounded way to much like an ad. It's my way of saying thank you for all of you, to the community and to Free Software in general. Trisquel was what made me try and stick with Free Software, understand the importance of it, and drove my life to only one goal: "Build the most powerful, and libre hardware and software in the world". Website: https://libretrend.com PS: Like in 2014, I am giving a special discount to everyone from the Trisquel Community (valable to a limited time) for a total of 100€: FSF18 Related Trisquel Posts: Free Software from a Student POV: https://trisquel.info/en/forum/just-question-all-free-software-users-student Libretrend - My vision of Free Software: https://trisquel.info/en/forum/libretrend-my-vision-free-software Partnership and Media Coverage: https://trisquel.info/en/forum/librebox-small-computer Libretrend at the Evento Linux 2014: https://trisquel.info/en/forum/libretrend-will-be-evento-linux-2014-25th-sept-lisbon-portugal
Re: [Trisquel-users] LibreBox small computer
Before anything thank you for this honest and complete message. I understand what you mean, but at the same time I have some problems trying to solve what for me wasn't a problem until I saw all those comments. We dedicate to Free Software but for now we can't propose fully free hardware (only if we started selling old computers like the x200). This is quite a problem, because all our branding was based on the Free Software values, and yes this partnership doesn't go well with our believes. As for the LibreBox, I can try to tell how many times I want that it comes from the junction of the LibreTrend name and the term Box, and yet you'll still be completely right. We can't change our branding, and we can't change the name of our products, but we can make it more clear that one product/software etc.. is no Free Software, and this is exactly what we will do. In the next days I'll make some important changes on the website in order to reflect that question, and I'll make it more clear what is Free Software, what isn't and what is the importance of Free Software. Once again, I take every comment, positive or negative, very seriously because not only this can and will affect my own business, but it also will affect the way LibreTrend works. How can we work only for Free Software and still be confusing people ? That would be a huge nonsense for our business and I sincerely didn't see that problem that way. Once again thank you for your feedback!
Re: [Trisquel-users] Radio Talk Show covering Free Software : Declare Your Independence with Ernest Hancock
Excellent talk, I think that you got all the important points. But that host :) Good job once again.
Re: [Trisquel-users] LibreBox small computer
Our goal is to provide Free Software and Hardware. We have a long road until we can finally provide a fully 100% Libre computer, but all our software is Free Software only, we worked on a Coreboot version as a start before trying a truly free BIOS, but it didn't work well for a lot of reasons (lack of time, money and knowledge). So, yes we are trying our best but it isn't always as we want it to be :)
Re: [Trisquel-users] LibreBox small computer
Thank you for sharing the link :)
Re: [Trisquel-users] LibreBox small computer
You are actually right. But our main goal is and always was Free Software. When we created the Librebox we created it with Trisquel in mind, but it just didn't catch up. We made some announcements and even post a topic on Trisquel which received a lot of comments and views but nothing more, the project just stagnated. Then there was the Ubuntu MATE contact which helped us boost like crazy (at least in terms of public acknowledge) and now almost everyone is talking about us and the fact that we deliver a Free Software Friendly machine. I talk personally with the person behind the Ubuntu MATE project, he knows that internally at LibreTrend we only use Trisquel Gnu/Linux, and he knows that for us allowing Ubuntu MATE was something which we hadn't planed at all. But yet we found a deal, and everything work great. The result ? More and more people are talking about Free Software and the importance of it, and we didn't loose our purpose (and never will). Yes, it's not ideal, but it worked, and for us it's really wonderful, mostly because now we can continue our work on the LibreBox 2 (which will release in Mid-2016) which will be, in my opinion, a revolutionary product dedicated to Free Software.
Re: [Trisquel-users] LibreBox small computer
GlugGlug machines aren't hard to make, mostly because the bios is already made and it runs on hardware which can be found for quite cheap on ebay (for example). The real challenge is making a new product with relatively new hardware running that same BIOS, and unfortunately there is a spiral (in my opinion) where : - Producers create a product and don't liberate their bios so they ship it with a proprietary one - Small developers solve the problem on that device because they can't mass produce something new - Others try to mass produce but don't have the financial support - Since they don't do something fully freed people just keep buying the first one I really believe that this can be done, and done well. Maybe by us, maybe by ThinkPenguin or maybe by someone new who would arrive soon, we don't know. Until then, unfortunately, we have to depend on what the market gives us.
Re: [Trisquel-users] LibreBox small computer
Our name is LibreTrend because we dedicate to Free Software and Hardware, our first computer has a name which is a mixture of our brand name (LibreTrend) and what it is on the outside (a Box), this is why it's called the LibreBox. For now the LibreBox is a small computer with a Free Software Friendly hardware, nowhere on the website we tell that the computer is fully free and even on the shop page you have a normal size line saying that we use a Standard BIOS. All the rest of the hardware has been selected to work without the need for proprietary drivers or firmwares.
Re: [Trisquel-users] LibreBox small computer
I understand the misunderstanding, but as said in a earlier comment it's a mix of our brand name (LibreTrend) and what the computer actually is from the outside (a Box). This is why it's called the LibreBox. If our brand name would be SuperTrend it would be the SuperBox :)
Re: [Trisquel-users] LibreBox small computer
Unfortunately we didn't had a lot of luck trying to create a Libre (or partially Libre) bios for the LibreBox, so we had to put that idea in standby for now. But it is one of our main goals.
