this post was submitted on 28 Jul 2025
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Linux is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution (or distro for short).
Distributions include the Linux kernel and supporting system software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their name, but the Free Software Foundation uses the name GNU/Linux to emphasize the importance of GNU software, causing some controversy.
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Regardless of your stance on GPL or not, I find the firmware stance very strange.
If software is made available to you, you must reject it. But as long as the hardware runs it behind closed doors, you can use it.
The CPU microcode situation is a good example. You can run your CPU, having no idea what it is doing or how it works. No problem. But if they ship an update to fix a bug, you cannot apply that update unless it is open source. The “free” choice is to run known vulnerabilities on top of the black box. And the in-chip behaviour is complex enough that Intel chips included a whole UNIX-like operating system in them (Minix) and people did not even realize it. The same is true for every chip in your system. Crazy.
If you are not going to demand open hardware, there is no point in being so absolutist about the firmware. That is even if you want to be truly hard core about the software running on top.